Shot was filtered with a #4 neutral density filter. Spring Creek is a tiny but permanent flow of pristine water from high in the Sierra Nevada foothills, spilling into the Yuba River at a nice waterfall. This is the place where magic happens: the incredibly massive ladybug hive; the face-to-face with the snake; the minor cliff I fell off backwards and broke several ribs (The Nikon D80 fell with me and put a small dent on my chest with zero camera damage); endangered frogs, and; some of the sweetest small waterfalls. It can be very noisy of quiet, overhung with tree branches of open spaces, one stepping-stone wide of a harrowing 25-hop crapshoot. LOL! Some rocks are stable, some were last year, and some slippery enough to dump you in bone-chilling water in a heartbeat. The elevation of high enough that I have to stop for breath along the mile-long cliff-side trail.

That trail can be a perilous in places where there’s no easy footing over 100 feet of a nasty fall over bounders and thru bushes before the last 20 feet of freefall which may be onto rocks, sand, or the Yuba River. I saw the immediate aftermath of that peril one afternoon when a pair of women struggled past us. One was bloody enough to make you want to help carry her or call for an ambulance (It would be helicopter only and unlikely that any cell reception could get out. Odds are she broke at least ribs, maybe a hand. Sometimes, there’s no way to walk up or down the river to a place where you can climb out at all, much less easily. These hearty mountain women brought themselves back up where one had fallen. How they did it is beyond me.

A big SHOUT OUT to the sweet person who bought this piece!