Leon Turnbull Photography

Our beloved dog, Kaya, of almost 17 years passed on this week. She was one month shy of turning 17. Kaya means “stay and never leave” in Inuit, and she really lived up to her name right to the very end. I have a lot of nice photos of her, but this was the ONLY one I could find with a waterfall, and it is just a crappy iPhone shot. So odd, I was sure I had more than that! You would think I would have more than that! This one was in Oregon, I believe. Anyway, I just wanted to share some short and funny memories of her with you. I’m sure you do not care about my memories of Kaya, but all of them are related to hiking, so they are not totally irrelevant to this waterfalls blog. Ha ha.

The scariest moment in her life (that I remember) was when she almost fell over the lower tier of Whiskeytown Falls. I was not paying attention to her while I was photographing the waterfall, and when I looked over at her, I saw her slip into the creek above the falls. She managed to clamber back up on the rocks just in time. Whew! I always wondered what would have happened if she had gone over. She would not have died, perhaps, but she probably would have been injured and I would have had to carry her all the way back to the car. 

She was a medium sized dog, not heavy, but heavy enough. She hated walking over any kind of bridge, especially if you could see the water flowing beneath it. When we went to Tamanawas Falls in Oregon, there is a bridge near the beginning of the trail. Somehow, she walked over it on the way to the falls, but on the way back she completely refused. The creek was flowing far too fast for her to wade across and she would not walk over that bridge. Period. What was I going to do? There was only one thing to do and that was carry her across. It was a very narrow and icy bridge. She was a good girl though and held completely still while I carried her, otherwise I could have easily slipped and we both would have been in the creek. Do you know the extremely narrow and freaky bridge over Canyon Creek at Gold Run? She crossed on that one no problem (both ways). To this day, I wonder how she ever walked across that bridge. It was early on. Maybe that’s the one that did her in for the rest of her life.

She was excellent at walking over rocks and boulders and such things that are not easy, especially for dogs. I am the waterfall madman, and I frequently go off trail. Kaya always followed me wherever I would go, and without any difficulty. If we came to big huge rocks that she literally could not climb up, she would run around like a mad woman looking for a way around that she could manage. There were times I might have to carry her over the rocks. She did not like that. She hated that. Better to go around if possible. A few years ago when she could still hike with me but when she was still rather old, I took her on a hike to Big Springs near McCloud. It was a much tougher hike than I expected and probably more than she could really handle at that age (don’t tell my wife), but she followed me without complaint the entire way, down the mountain, through the brush, and over the rocks. She did sleep well for the rest of the day. Once we went hiking with a friend and his dog to Deadhorse Falls near Red Bluff in winter. It was down a very steep hill into the bottom of the canyon through the snow. Kaya and I went down the hill very quickly, like gangbusters, while my friend and his dog had to go down extremely slow and careful. They were not used to the madman’s off trail antics. But Kaya did well to wait patiently for her new friend to catch up. That’s my girl, Kaya.

She hated swimming, but she liked going in the water. Only up to her belly though! She would not go in any water that was over her belly. That was sometimes a problem when he had to cross creeks to get to waterfalls. She was great at waiting for me patiently on the wrong side of the creeks. Usually she would lie down and take a snooze while she waited. As long as she could see me!

Kaya was also incredibly smart (and silly). Once at Upper Sheep Creek Falls in Washington, I could not for the life of me find the proper path down to the falls. It was Kaya who found the “proper” trail down, I would have missed it completely if not for her (honestly). She whipped down that trail like nobody’s business, then she came to one spot which was particularly tricky (or so she determined), and she would not continue. I could not entice her down this one spot no matter what. So instead, I went back up to her, and found a different way down (which I thought was much worse), but she had no problems going down this different, steeper, route. Silly dog.

What about wildlife encounters? She was essentially oblivious to all of them. My sister’s dog Pocah loves to chase squirrels as I found out recently in Oregon (apparently they do not have big grey squirrels where they live in British Columbia). Kaya, however, was not one for the big chase. Maybe she chased one or two squirrels in her life, but not many. Once while hiking in Auburn, we came across a couple bears on the path. They were incredibly curious about us for sure, and even got up on their hind legs to get a good look at us, but Kaya was far too occupied sniffing every little thing we passed along the trail (as she always did). Same thing when we came across the killer cows on Table Mountain in Oroville. They were certainly very wary of Kaya, but Kaya could care less about chasing them. (Pocah would have had a field day on Table Mountain). Always remember to stop and smell the roses. Kaya certainly did that. RIP.

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My brother-in-law (Lynal) had been waiting 20 years for this event, he said. He organized everything, including renting a nice house for us in Sunriver, Oregon, south of Bend. If it wasn’t for him doing all this, I would not have gone up into the totality of Oregon. I hate crowds and it was going to be absolute madness in central Oregon. However, I am so glad I went. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity to see a total eclipse. If you thought you had a good viewing of it in California you are wrong. Even if you were at 99% I’m sorry but you really missed out. No offense, but the difference between 99 and 100 percent eclipse is like night and day, literally. It is a huge difference. If you have a chance to go in 2024 you really must (however, it will not be on the west coast like this year).

On eclipse day, we left the house at 3:30am much to the chagrin of most of the family. Only Lynal and I were raring to go. Not even Pocah the dog wanted to get up (and especially when she realized there would be 8 of us piling into the van, leaving her nowhere to sit or lie down). But if we left any later, we would not have made it. Our goal was the Painted Hills park in John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. Traffic was not bad until we got close to the park. We arrived at 5:30am and were stopped in a big line up of cars. They would not open the gates until 6am, so Jadon and I left the rest of the family and ran up ahead of all the cars. We got ahead of all of them but there were still lots of people already in the park who had camped out along the road. We walked up past the main overlook and found a prime viewing spot overlooking the hills and next to some pro photographers with big huge camera lenses, from Japan I think. We were in the perfect spot for the total eclipse, and waited for the rest of the family to catch up to us. I watched the road with my big lens looking for a white dog coming up the road (it was too far away to make out anything else), and finally I saw a dog followed by a little girl in pink. That has to be my niece, Mya. And indeed it was. My other niece Hannah thought my perfect spot was not perfect enough, so she climbed up to the top of the hill to get to a better viewing spot. Perhaps she did find an even better spot to see the eclipse. There were a lot of people in the park, but it is such a wide open area that it did not feel crowded at all. The rest of the morning was a waiting game, but it went by quickly and it was a beautiful morning.

The moment finally arrived. It did not disappoint but it was not what I expected. The corona was huge and spectacular during the totality. I did not expect that. It was an eerie twilight light. It got chilly (my mom said it was very cold). We could see a couple stars. I thought it would be darker; so it was definitely different than I thought it would be, but it was very cool and awesome. Nonetheless, it was not the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen in my life. (Lynal said it was for him and I heard others say the same thing). I think McConnell Peak Falls was more spectacular, and I can think of other waterfalls I have seen that I would say were more spectacular. But I’m the waterfall madman so of course I’d say something like that. You cannot compare such things anyway. Apples and oranges.

The photo here was taken moments before totality. The colors were not as nice as I thought they might be, but the shadows were really interesting. I did not really try to take any photos of the eclipse. I did not have proper filters and I wanted more to just enjoy the experience. The few photos I did take did not turn out very well compared to the multitude of good photos I have seen of the eclipse. I will not be sharing them.

Traffic out was a nightmare. It took two hours to get there and four hours back. Yikes. Oh well. It was well worth the trip to see this once in a lifetime event.

 

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On the way back down from Half Moon Lake, I wanted to make one pit stop to a second new waterfall. We had time, and it was still fairly early. This would be a quick little detour.

There is no trail, said Nekoda. Yeah I know that, I said. On the way up to Half Moon, Nekoda asked me if I ever went on hikes that were straight up the mountain without any nicely graded trails (such as the one we were hiking on). I said, yes, lots of times. That must be very hard, she said. I said, definitely much harder than this hike. I think now she must have been getting an anxiety attack when I started off trail on this little side trip.

She had nothing to worry about, it was a very easy little side trip. However, when we got over to the creek, I could see that to get up to the falls, we were going to have to do some bushwhacking through some brush. Nekoda did not want to do this. She was already pretty tired. Any extra effort would take all her energy away for the hike back down the mountain. She wanted to just sit down and wait. I insisted she come with me. It would not be too hard or long. The waterfall was hidden in a slot canyon, and we had to jump across the creek at the bottom of the falls to see it. It was an incredibly gorgeous 76 ft. high cascade, shooting down a very narrow slot, and fanning out at the bottom. It was much much nicer than I expected it to be. Stunningly beautiful. I think Nekoda was glad I made her come after all. Even though this is just a short detour from the main trail, I do not think hardly anyone knows this waterfall exists. Did you? We relaxed a bit, took photos, and then headed down the mountain. We still had quite a hike to do, and we just got back to the car a bit after dark.

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It would be back to Lake Tahoe and the Desolation Wilderness once more for me, and this time my daughter Nekoda wanted to tag along. I like it when my children want to come with me. It seems like such a rare thing.

My initial thought was we would backpack up to Half Moon Lake for one night. However, since it was last minute I could not get a permit, so thus I decided we should just do a day hike instead. It is only 6 miles (1 way) and a 1700 ft. elevation gain. We can do that in a day, right? Nekoda can do that in a day, right?

We arrived in Lake Tahoe around noon, stopped at Subway to get lunch and brought it to the Glen Alpine trailhead. I was shocked to see the parking area completely full. I would expect this on a Saturday, but this was not a Saturday. I prayed for a spot. There was a car ahead of me, but he turned off to the right. After he turned, another person waved me into the one remaining spot, located right at the trailhead sign. Perfecto! Thank you once again, Lord. It would really suck to have to walk an extra mile just to get to the trailhead. This was going to be a tough hike as it was.

We sat down by the lake and ate our lunch. The local chipmunks joined us, literally climbing up on our backs to get any morsels we would give them. Ok not literally, but almost. They were all over us and not shy at all. I suspect they get plenty of handouts in this area.

I heard the mosquitoes have been bad in this area in recent weeks. I have experienced them here in the past, and it was not pleasant. I was prepared for the worst. However, I could not get a very recent report and the last one I got was a couple weeks ago. Perhaps they have subsided since then. I hoped so, anyway. As it turned out, we did not see any bugs on the hike up to the lake or while up at the lake. Only on the hike back down in the evening did the mosquitoes come out to feast, but once we put on bug spray, they left us alone. So all in all, not too bad at all.

About halfway up the mountain, Nekoda almost bonked. Apparently this was a tougher hike for her than I thought it would be. She does not hike much, but she is a dancer, and she is dancing about 5 days per week usually, so she should be in great shape. Now since it is summer, she has not danced in the past couple weeks, but she should not get out of shape in only two weeks. Thus, I figured this hike would be fairly easy for her. Humph. Well, I really wanted to get up to this waterfall, but I also know Nekoda is more important than the hike. If I take her on a hike that is too hard for her, that is all on me. My fault completely. I told her that and that it was perfectly ok to turn around if she needed to. I can do this hike anytime. But Nekoda is a trooper. She always has been a trooper. Remember the story of her continuing the hike with me last year after she was stung by a bee? She wanted to continue on, so onwards we went. Before too long, the terrain leveled out and got much easier the rest of the way to the lake.

When we got up on the ridge the views were astounding. We could see over to Susie Lake and Susie Lake Falls (roaring), and the drainage above Susie Lake. There was still an incredible amount of snow above Susie Lake. It is the middle of August. I could not believe how much snow is still up there.

When we finally got to Half Moon Lake, we could see the waterfall on the other side of the lake, and it was flowing very strong. Awesome. There was still snow at the base of the waterfall. Nekoda thought it just looked just ok, and not so awesome. Wait til you get up close to it, dearie. You will be impressed. We are still a long way away from it. It was a longer hike to the end of the lake than I anticipated. The trail became quite overgrown now, but it was not too difficult. We were early however, so we went down to Alta Morris Lake to spend an hour or so.

What will you give me if I jump in the lake, I said to Nekoda. The lake was freezing cold. There was still snow around the lakeside. I will give you a kiss, she said. Ok that works, I said. The lake was blistering, but I dipped my head completely under for a very brief second, while she took photos of me doing it. It was fun and refreshing. You have to do this, I told her. She said, no way! Nonetheless, I talked her into it and she went under as well. Fun fun fun. I never did get my kiss, though. She said that since she did it as well, she does not owe me anything. Lame! After we huddled together to relieve our hypothermia, we went back up to the waterfall. We had to walk up a snow field to get up to it. Nekoda waited while I went over closer to the falls to take my photos. It is a magnificent 117 ft. high waterfall.

Hiking back down from the falls, I could see a large animal on the snow off in the distance. From this distance, it looked like it was getting ready to make a run for my daughter, who was way off ahead of me. It was too small to be a mountain lion, but I was definitely thinking coyote or bobcat. As I got closer, I could see it was neither of these. It was a bird. It was an enormous bird. It was a golden eagle. It was sitting on the snow, eating something or other. So I guess it was not interested in attacking my daughter, but it was definitely interesting to see it there on the snow.

We made good time hiking back down the mountain. We saw a couple backpackers coming up. Their packs looked enormous. And I thought that eagle was big.  It is not pleasant to go backpacking when you are carrying such a huge weight. I did that last year, my pack was 45 pounds. And I’m sure these two had at least 55 pounds on their backs by the looks of it. I am so glad I cut my pack weight to about 32 pounds this year. It is so much more pleasant! Backpacking is supposed to be fun! Anyway, it was getting quite late and I do not think these two were going to make it up to the lake before dark. Not at the rate they were going (which was zero mph). It was 8:30 when Nekoda and I got back to the car. Just a little past dark. Not too shabby.

It was a glorious hike up into the Desolation Wilderness, and we did not just see the one awesome waterfall. We saw a second fantastic waterfall on the way back down as well. Coming up next …

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Got gas? No sir. Negatory. Nopity nope.

In this case that is actually a bad thing. After I made my dinner on the first day, I realized my gas canister was now empty. Crap! I was so careful about checking everything on my backpacking trip, but I did not check my gas canister. I was certain I had enough for another trip. Stupid stupid stupid. I had to eat all my snack food for breakfast the next morning, and now I did not have enough food to stay somewhere a second night, as I had initially wanted to. I had two lunches (for 2 days), and no breakfasts or dinners to eat. So I packed up my gear and hiked all the way back. 11 miles. All the way back to Loon Lake. In the heat. I did not get back to the car until after noon, and I was dead tired. Did I say it was hot? Bummer, but I did have a totally epic first day on the trip. I found two, yes two, incredibly spectacular waterfalls, and a third one as well that was not too shabby either.

When I first planned the hike to Horseshoe Lake Falls, I did not think I would go up to McConnell Peak Falls. I did not even consider it at first. However, when I studied the route on Google Earth, I saw that it did not look too difficult to climb up to the top of Horseshoe Lake Falls, and from there it is a short distance to McConnell Peak Falls. This new hike was now on the agenda. Totally on the agenda. These two waterfalls in the Desolation Wilderness have been on my radar for a few years now, but before now they both just seemed too remote to reach.

It was a bit steep and sketchy in a couple places but overall not too hard to climb to the top of the first waterfall. From there I got on an actual trail, and continued up to Horseshoe Lake. The trail is not much of a trail, but it is a trail. Sort of. Sort of not. In other words it is a bit faded and hard to follow. At Horseshoe Lake, I got my first glimpse of McConnell Peak Falls. My thought was: yeah it looks like it is ok. You are still quite a long distance away at Horseshoe Lake. Initially, I thought I would just take a photograph of it from Horseshoe Lake and call it a day. However, it was still early, the lake was still in the sun, and would be for at least 3 more hours, and oh yeah, there were mosquitoes at the lake. I did not want to wait around 3 hours with the skeeters. Plus, I could not see any good compositions of the waterfall from the lake anyway. The trail was pretty good from the lake, so I continued onwards. It meanders through the forest before it comes out right at the base of the waterfall. When I first saw it up close, I exclaimed out loud something to the effect: holy crap is that ever awesome! This is most certainly one of the most spectacular waterfalls in the Northern Sierra, and without a doubt it is the best waterfall I have seen so far this year. About 470 ft. high, and flowing very strong. In the Desolation Wilderness, it is second only to Horsetail Falls (590 ft.). There was still plenty of snow melting from McConnell Peak in late July. It is crazy awesome that you can get right to the base of this giant waterfall and look up to see the entire thing crashing down the cliff. Wow wow wow! It is also crazy that I have never seen any photos of this massive waterfall before. The trail goes right along the bottom of it, but this area is so remote, I do not think it ever gets very much traffic, even in the summer after the snow is melted and the waterfall is reduced to a trickle. Seeing it now, after a great snow year, and flowing so strong in the middle of summer, is something that very few people have ever seen. After seeing these two incredible waterfalls, I didn’t feel so bad about having to hike home a day early. It was an incredible trip into the remote Desolation Wilderness.

 

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