Burney Falls

Every since moving up to Northern California two years, I have had two waterfalls on my mind that I absolutely had to visit. One was Mossbrae Falls, which I hit up earlier this summer on my Lake Siskiyou camping trip. The other was Burney Falls.



Seeing as how McArthur-Burney Memorial State Park was only six miles off the highway I was traveling on for my trip to Ahjumawi, there was no way I was going to let this opportunity slip by. So heading back down highway 299 towards Redding we turned off on highway 89, heading north for the short drive to the park and the falls the lie just within.



Compared to the long hike down the side of railroad tracks in the glaring sun to get to Mossbrae, the experience at Burney Falls is instant gratification (there are advantages to both though, with more seclusion to be found at Mossbrae). A short walk from the parking lot gives your first view down into the canyon that the falls are pouring into. Breathtaking even from here.



As you descend to the base of the falls there are a few nice stops for taking it all in before being dumped into the spray zone at the bottom. Determined to get some great closeup shots I continue along the edge of the pool working my way up as close as I could get to the falls. This turned out to be a great decision, as the mist shooting off the crashing water was not blowing in this direction leaving me with a dry vista with perfect views of the falls.



I was also fortunate in that this time of year (just after the start of fall) the sun is far enough south in the sky that even at around noon the canyon remained mostly in shadow. This allowed me to get nice even exposures with relatively long shutter speeds on the tripod to blur the water into the silky form that is seen in the photographs.



I must say, Burney Falls did not disappoint. If I had to rank all the waterfalls I have ever seen on beauty and majesty alone, Burney Falls would currently fall at the top of this list. It was an amazing experience standing standing below, feeling the power of these falls, and witnessing the splendor in which they make their decent. Astonishing!

Ahjumawi

I spent last weekend paddling and camping at Ahjumawi Lava Springs State Park. Basically it is a huge collection of springs flowing into where Big Lake, Fall River, Tule River, Ja-She Creek, and Lava Creek converge. Together they form one of the largest collection of fresh water springs in the entire country. Yet this park only gets about 2,000 visitors a year making it the least visited park in the California State Park system.



A good part of the reason that this park is so infrequently visited is the fact that there are no roads to it. To get to this special place you have to go by boat and parts of the waterways do not allow any motorized boats at all. So this seemed like the perfect place to test out my canoe with a weekend trip.



With the canoe loaded with tents, sleeping bags, stove, ice chest, fishing gear and everything else we needed for the weekend, a buddy of mine and I paddled our way the two miles across the lake and over to our destination Crystal Springs campground (it actually ended up being further by the time we paddled up and down a few waterways looking for the camp).



Finally we caught sight of what appeared to be a landing spot. Sure enough just inside the tree line was one of the three available camping locations in this campground (there are three separate campgrounds, Horr Pond, Crystal Springs, and Ja-She Creek each with three well spaced out sites). This turned out to be our favorite of the three sites, so we unloaded and called it home for the next two nights.



We spent most of the first day settling in and doing some fishing. There are some seriously big rainbow trout that call this place home. My favorite spot to fish was right off the footbridge on Ja-She creek.



We started off the next day by hiking the spatter cone loop trail. I wasn't all that impressed by the spatter cone itself, but it was really neat seeing all the lava rock strewn about, and the lava tubes were really cool to climb down in (literally cool as it was 10-20 degrees cooler than the outside air of the hot day). We also found this black berry bush on the way that was just overflowing with ripe berries. Oh so good!



My favorite part of the trip by far was when we paddled up Ja-She Creek. The water there was amazingly aqua blue (see the first picture on this page), and I wish I had done it justice photographically. We saw lots of neat rock fish traps that have not changed since the Pit River Indians used to use them for harvesting spawning fish. The clarity of the water and the hues of blue were spectacular. I hope to go back sometime in the spring (and fight the hordes of mosquitoes) to see the waters when the clarity extends beyond where the creeks and springs come in (this time of year the main body of water was pretty murky and green with algae growing everywhere).

Until then I'll have thoughts of paddling my canoe solo Canadian style in the first light of day, gliding on the crystal water coming out of volcanic springs.



To get to Ahjumawi take the 299 out of Redding towards Burney and McArthur. At McArthur turn north on Main st (a left if you're coming from Redding). This turns into a dirt road. The way isn't marked very well, but stay right, across the canal, and follow the road to the Rat Farm parking lot. Launch your boat here, and paddle up the narrow water way until it reaches the main lake. From here head across to the northern shore line and follow it towards the west. After a short while you'll see Horr Pond. It's marked with a series of State Park Property signs and is enclosed by small islets that ring it. No motor boats are allowed in here and the first campground is located on the shore. I personally found the other two campgrounds more attractive.

Continue west, exiting the Horr Pond ring of islets, and follow around the next peninsula you hit. On the far side of this peninsula head up into the cove to Crystal Springs campground. You'll know you are in the right place when you see an old abandoned cabin at the northern most part of the cove. This is where the "iron ranger" is, which is where you deposit your camping fees.

In front of that cabin in the main landing spot and where I would land for camp site number 6. Number 6 is not right on the lake, but up the road a short bit to the east and on the left (this might be attractive in peak mosquito seasons).

For campsite 4 there is another landing just to the left of that "main" landing. This campsite is where the pit toilet resides and is fairly close to the water.

To the right of the main landing, past all the rock ringed (fish traps) springs is another takeout for campsite 5 (this might actual be a better place to land for site 6 as well, but you have to go through 5 to get to 6). This was where we stayed and it provided the closes access to the water with a nice shady spot just inside the tree line.

The final campground, Ja-She creek, is a bit further west of Crystal Springs. You'll see a concrete boat ramp, and this is the takeout for all three campsites. It's a little ways from the ramp up to the sites, and I found them to be a bit closer together than the Crystal Springs sites. Still nice spots, and they are closer to my favorite area of the park which was Ja-She creek coming in further up into the cove from the boat ramp.

BTW, while you are in the area I highly recommend stopping off at Burney Falls. We stopped by on our way home and I blogged about it here: http://alwaysjanuary.blogspot.com/2009/10/burney-falls.html

Juniper Lake

Not wanting to give in to the end of camping season just yet, my wife and I decided to get away for Labor weekend and try someplace new. We had always wanted to check out Lassen National Park, and recently we read about a beautiful pristine lake there called Juniper Lake. What a magnificent place it was.



The lake sits in the south eastern portion of Lassen National Park about 15 miles outside the small town of Chester. The road up isn't too bad until you hit the last 5.5 miles which is a barely maintained dirt road. Clearance is not an issue on the road, it's just wash-boarded really bad in certain areas. You can easily cruise along at 15-20 miles an hour most of the way, with just a few spots so bumpy you have to slow to a crawl for a minute or two to keep from rattling your teeth out. All in all the half hour spent on this part of the road is well worth the treasure that awaits on the other side.



The lake itself is not that large, only about a mile and a half long with 5 miles of shoreline. It's really the perfect size for paddling around in a canoe or kayak, which is particularly of interest here as there are no motor boats aloud. It won't take long paddling out to realize why they have protected this gem from the possibility of pollutants of motorized boats. The clarity of the water and the shades of green, to blue, to aquamarine are just unreal. It really struck me as a miniature lake Tahoe in the beauty of the water and it's colors.



With only 18 sites in the campground, and our hopes set on one of the four prized lake front sites, we decided the best way to go was to have me leave a day early, arriving on Thursday. It's a good thing I did. I was initially one off of the four prime spots, but while unpacking a friendly neighbor stopped by and let me know that the people at the site on the other side of him were leaving early the next morning. What a great tip this turned out to be (Thanks Mark!!), as by next morning I found myself setting up (again) in one of the most beautiful campsites I've ever stayed in. The views of the lake were just unreal, and we had perfect access to put our canoe in the water.



Fully relaxed from my night and morning alone in paradise, I decided to take a hike up to Crystal Lake before going back down into Chester to meet the family. What a great little lake that was as well. With only about a half a mile hike from the trail head up a fairly steep trail, I was rewarded with this beautiful lake that I found myself completely alone at. Yup, a quick skinny dip was definitely in order and the water felt great! I took a picture set up on a timer, but Jennifer didn't seem too happy with my idea of linking to it (no matter how many disclaimers and warnings I put along with it). It's probably a good thing. The human eye can take only so much brightness. Below is a g-rated photo of the lake.



Once clothed and down the trail again I met up with Jennifer and the kids down in Chester. We only spent a couple more nights there, but it was an amazingly beautiful place to spend the weekend. We paddled the canoe, hiked around a bit, and just hung out and relaxed. What a wonderful place to camp that I'm sure will end up being a yearly trip.

Artist Reception

My whole family and I made it down to the Urban Hive for the Vox Artist Reception night of the Second Saturday show that is going on tomorrow. A ton of great work up there. Didn't get a chance to talk to many people. Was too busy taking it all in and chasing my son around keeping him happy and out of trouble.



Above is my display (on the left) with the family "posing" in the foreground. It was awesome to see my prints up on display at such a cool venue amongst so many other great photographers.

Here's a few more views of the show:









Can't wait for tomorrow!

My First Art Show

VOX Sept flyer
Originally uploaded by jillallyn

So this weekend I'll be showing some of my photographs at the Vox Second Saturday Art Show. Every second Saturday in Sacramento there is a big art walk going on, so the people at Vox put together different showings with local artists. This month they are featuring local photographers that are part of the Sacramento Photographers group on Flickr. So it's not really like I was singled out for my talents or anything, but all the same I'm really excited to be a part of it.



So I went down there last night to hang my prints and finally got to check the place out. It's a shared business place called the Urban Hive and had lots of cool old brick walls and was a pretty laid back casual environment (my kind of place). I grabbed a spot the wall just inside the front doors and large windows that can be seen from outside and was lit quite well. It was kind of a pain to get thirteen 11x14 frames all lined up and looking decent, but damn it looked cool once I was done. I'll get some pics of the display this weekend.



All the prints I have hung at the showing can be seen here:
http://www.januaryphotography.net/impressions-of-sf/

**Edit to Add** Just in case coming to see my fabulous art isn't enough reason, maybe this will sweeten the deal: http://theurbanhive2ndsat.eventbrite.com/?ref=esfb



Been a busy week getting ready for this, and we went on an amazing camping trip last weekend. I'll try to get some photos and a writeup on that later this weekn.

Fun in the Tub

Had a little fun with bathtime the other day with Andrew, and pulled out my Westcott Apollo softbox. That thing really puts out a great light. It doesn't take much either. I think I had the Strobe set to 1/16th power (maybe it was 1/8th, I don't remember). That power is perfect for shooting portraits at F/2.8 or so. Nice shallow DOF, clean crisp focus, nice soft yet directional light, and recycle time is nonexistent.



I did have a little scare with my Elinchrom El-Skyport radio triggers though. Hooked everything up, went to shoot, and then my flash didn't fire. Checked the channel, sync cord, everything looked good but it wouldn't trigger. Luckily I keep my good old trusty fallback home-made sync cord around. That thing always works, and I always have it in my lighting bag just in case!

Turns out my trigger (that goes on the camera, as opposed to the receiver that plugs into the flash) had a dead battery. 10 bucks and trip to Radio Shack later and it's working just fine and I know have a backup battery in the bag. I still think the Elinchroms are a great alternative to the more expensive Pocket Wizards.



So hopefully I'll be pulling my lighting kit out a bit more often again, and I'll try to sneak in a subject or two that isn't a child of mine. What can I say though, I'm blessed with cute kids that love the camera :-)

More Paddling

Jennifer and I spent some more time paddling the backwaters and creeks of Lake Natoma. It was such a beautiful evening. Between the soft light of late day, and the rhythmic sounds of our paddles cutting through the water, our trip was so peaceful.



It's so great to have a little getaway spot so close by. It's the perfect place to melt away the stress of a workday and bond with the woman I love. I'm so lucky to have someone who appreciates these things in life as much as I do.



We're slowing discovering new places in the area to go paddling around, and I'm slowly getting more comfortable with leaving my camera out of the dry bag to get some photos along the way. We've already explored the amazing Consumnes Reserve; a river sanctuary on the last remaining river that flows from the Sierra mountains to the ocean uninterrupted (we'll be hitting this place up again soon and I'll be sure to get some better photos). Next up is some high Sierra lakes starting with Lake Fuller this weekend.