Leon Turnbull Photography

So I’ve been needing to get back into jogging for awhile. My weight is up quite a bit now. But I had a brilliant idea in my head that I could take my camera on the jog with me and jog to someplace (along the American River) where I could do some photography of birds or what not, then jog back afterwards. So this is what I did. I packed my bag as light as possible (basically only the camera and the 400mm lens in it). I was worried it would jiggle around too much which might be too hard on the lens, but I packed it well, and it seemed to be fine. I went to Lake Natoma and started jogging to this spot I thought might be good, and went down to the lake and sat down and waited. At first, it didn’t seem like a very good place. There were no birds around at all, and I was thinking I might have to go somewhere else. However, before too long, some Canadians splashed into the water from across on this little island and swam over to me. I don’t like taking photos of geese or ducks much (too common), but these guys came right up to me, within 5 feet. So I took a bunch of shots of them for awhile. I had to really pull back the zoom on the 400mm lens for some of them. I was amazed that they had no qualms about coming close to me. The ones at Salmon Falls are much more skitterish and don’t let you get very near them. But Lake Natoma is a much more popular place, and these guys are probably quite used to people (and getting handouts – I think that is why they came up to me in the first place). Still, I thought it very interesting that they are so different in comparison to the ones at Salmon Falls, which is only a few miles away. After the geese left, I noticed a kingfisher on the island across from me, fishing for dinner. He was a bit too far away, but I tried taking a few shots of him, and I watched him for quite awhile, as he would dive down into the water to catch a fish, then fly back up into the tree branches. He did that 4 or 5 times. Then, just as I was putting my camera away to leave, a hawk flew right over head. I could’ve had a great shot of him if I was ready. Then an egret flew over, and I missed him as well. So all in all, I had a pretty nice time there. I am definitely gonna do this again, jogging with my camera.

Here’s a couple more of the geese:

It’s coming. It’s coming. No, I’m not talking about Christmas and Santa Claus. Rain is in the forecast for northern California for all of next week. Sweet! And about darn time. Let’s just hope it’s going to be a big dump. It is already mid December and we haven’t had anything yet, so this is very welcome news. By the way if you visit any waterfalls in the near future, please be sure to send me updated information on my Current Conditions page:

http://www.waterfallswest.com/current.php

This is another shot of Middle McCloud Falls in northern California. It is a standard and very unoriginal view point for this waterfall. But I really like this view and the perspective looking down at the falls. And I especially like this shot because it is a stitch of three horizontal images. You can’t tell from this small web version, but the detail in the large view is incredible. I think it may be my best stitched image yet. I’ll have to make a really big print of this one, I think.

I went back to Folsom River (Lake?) again the other morning to do some more bird watching. I like this location for a couple reasons: (1) there’s usually no one else there so early in the morning. Sometimes I see fishermen here, but it seems to be even too cold for them at this time of year, and (2) I can usually spot quite a few birds along the river (lake?) here. This morning I saw a heron, plenty of geese (of course), a rock wren, other unidentifiable birds, a woodpecker, and plenty of these killdeer (shown above here). I am really starting to like the rock wrens because (a) they are cute, and (b) they don’t seem to care if I get very close to them. The heron took off before I got within a hundred miles of it (slight exaggeration). So I concentrated on stalking these killdeer, which I have not seen at this location before. They don’t like you getting very close to them either, and this was the only good shot I was able to get of these birds. As you can see there was frost on the ground, and thus it was rather cold. I didn’t spend much time here because I had to get to church for music practice, but on the way back to my car, I saw a woodpecker and I got a somewhat decent shot of it as well which I may post a bit later.

You may be thinking I’ve been more into bird watching lately than landscapes or waterfalls, and whazz up with that ? Well, I just think that bird watching can be a nice change of pace and can also be rather fun. Sometimes (such as this morning), I don’t have enough time to go find a nice location for sunrise. But frankly, I do prefer shooting the landscapes. Landscapes don’t move around constantly. They just sit there. The only thing that moves is the sun, and as long as you are in the right spot before the sun gets there, you are good to go. I can handle that. But nonetheless, I had a fun morning shooting the birdies down at the local river (lake?).

So what happens when you have a 200+ foot waterfall dropping off a 14,179 foot mountain? Well, let me tell you. It is a little overwhelming, that’s what. The mountain makes the waterfall look like a piddly little cascade, that’s what. It makes that small 5 footer on Squaw Creek look huge in comparison, that’s what.

If Mud Creek Canyon Falls were anywhere else, it would be a monster of a waterfall. But against the looming backdrop of Mt. Shasta, it is almost insignificant. See my below photo to get a better idea of what this waterfall looks like. The one above was shot at 400mm from across the canyon.

It is a long and rough drive out to the Clear Creek trailhead in the Mt. Shasta Wilderness. As I got closer and closer, there was more and more snow on the road. But it was not enough to stop my big SUV. I thought that I might find too much snow on the trail but it was really no trouble. The thing about this hike was that I was not at all prepared for it. I only thought of doing this hike the day before; with all the snow melting right now, it occurred to me that this waterfall might actually be flowing nicely at this time of year. But I had left all my appropriate hiking books back in Folsom, so I had no idea where to go, or how far of a hike it was. I did a search on the internet though, and I found good enough directions to the trailhead. But I found differing opinions on how long the hike was. From the info I found, it seemed that it was about a 3 mile hike at the most. I figured that I would just hike for an hour and if I found the waterfall, great, if not, then I’d turn back. I found the waterfall pretty easily and it was only about a 1 mile hike, and quite easy. The drive out to the trailhead was harder than the hike to the falls.

The view of Mud Creek Canyon Falls is from across the canyon. It is a spectacular view of the mountain and waterfall, but it is a long way away. There is certainly no easy way that I know of to get closer to the waterfall. It would be an extremely steep descent from the Clear Creek trail, then a steep ascent back up Mud Creek Canyon. This would also be quite dangerous as well. It sure would be nice to get closer, if I could figure out a way to do it.

The glaciers that you can see here at this viewpoint are called Konwakiton Glacier and Mud Creek Glacier. The very interesting thing about these and the other 5 glaciers on Mt. Shasta is that despite all the global warming going on, the glaciers on Shasta are actually increasing, not decreasing. They are the only known glaciers in the continental U.S. that are increasing. This is definitely strange to me and doesn’t really make sense. It is not as if northern California has been particularly colder than usual in recent years.

Here’s another long distance view:

After shooting at Middle McCloud, my next stop was Upper McCloud Falls. It is possible and not too difficult to hike to all three falls on the McCloud River. But since time was of the essense, I drove there. From the parking area, you need to scramble your way down to creek level where the best views are had. I think I managed to pick up a slight case of poison oak here too. Argh. Upper McCloud Falls is 25 ft. high, and dumps into a huge pool, which is popular in the summer for swimming. The river is a bit cold at this time of year though. I didn’t want to even get my feet wet on this day. Fortunately, I didn’t have to.