Boulder Creek is a small community tucked up in the redwood-forested mountains in Santa Cruz County. This was the first day in two weeks that it had not rained, and the water in all the streams were extra full, and our hike was quite muddy in places.

I hadn't brought a tripod with me on the ten-mile hike, so the waterfall's low light was definitely a challenge. This was solved by carefully balancing the camera on a wooden railing with my jacket sleeve wedged underneath to allow the camera shutter to remain open long enough to capture the beauty of the cascade. For camera buffs, it was a Nikon N70 with 24-85mm lens, f2.8, 1/15 sec.

New Year's Day was the first day in two weeks that it had stopped raining up in the Boulder Creek area.

On the day that we drove back home from Santa Cruz, we decided to take a rather circuitous route back, first traveling south on Highway One to Big Sur to spend a little time on the beach, then traveling northward to Carmel and then taking a small road, G16 back to the 101 Freeway. G16 cuts through the picturesque Carmel Valley and Carmel Valley Village, winding through the valley, gently sloping mountains, horse ranch property, and beautiful meadows before finally coming out in Greenfield.

This picture was taken by Lisa with a Yashica T4.