Upper Downing Creek Falls
Well, spring has sprung, and I am expecting the waterfall mania to start, for me anyway. When I was in Europe I was traveling in hostels (a goooood number of years ago) and I would chat with many backpackers. They all continuously brought up a desire NOT to see any more cathedrals. In fact, they had a term for it, they called it NAFC, "not another f#$&ing cathedral." I suppose I am guilty of doing the same with waterfalls. My cute sister even begs me to shoot anything else. Sorry Sis.
I almost hate to tell you anything about this one, because its hard as hell to find, and a large part of wants to keep it that way. Its no real secret, but I will tell you, it is hands down my favorite falls so far here in the Pacific Northwest. Hard to find, and hard to shoot, but beautiful. I had never even seen images of the falls before, never knew about it at all. But a total dud of a trip to Newberry Volcanic Monument found my family driving home disappointed (another story), and seeking at least one cool thing to see on the trip. My wife starts combing the web on her phone and finds that we are passing this gem. Wow, the minute I saw the falls I knew we had to stop. My wife, knowing how pissed I was at Newberry said, lets do it. Besides, the harder it is to get to, the more my wife likes it.
The turn off the road is very, very easy to miss. Once we found the turn off, the road was blocked by a tree just 100 feet in. Seems this fall did not want to be seen. I got out of the car and looked up the rest of the road. They call that a road? It was overgrown. Badly overgrown. But I think the new Subaru (whom the kids now call, The Professor because its plum colored) can make it. Still seething with anger at Newberry I pull out a shovel with a serrated saw edge and start sawing the tree. I was not going to get beat again, but I am not sure I would have won against this tree either! My 10 year old son, the wiz that he is, starts looking around and points out that tire tracks go around the tree. Hum. So I muster the anger and channel it into super human strength and pull the tree aside just enough for the wife to drive around. Take that Newberry. We are in.
We scrape past the overgrown landscape, and it turns out I was wrong. The Professor has paid the cost of my blind ambition (or my lust) and it now features mean scratches down both sides. Ops. Well, stuff is for the using I guess, so my wife reminds me (a phrase I use a lot, and she is right). We drive as far as we can, basically where two downed trees totally block the road. On foot now. Using a bad set of directions we found on the net, we stumble, in the rain and snow, with two kids through the thicket.
The directions proved almost useless, but our ears did not. after about a mile we could hear the water. The roar. The call. The rain is letting up. My tripod is cold, I can hardly hold anymore. A stack of stones helps assure that we are on the right path. There really is no trail but the sound is helping guide us. My wife has the kids between us on the trail because she thinks there could be bears here.
We get to a waterfall, but is that it? A bit lackluster, not sure its the one in the image, so we press on. Through the trees we finally see her. Wow. Now, it had been raining quite a bit, in fact there was snow 5 miles up the road. Still some here and there on the trail too. Point is, the falls were in full glory because there was so much water around, and so were the dozens of other smaller falls that flanked the giant. She was not so giant in terms of height, but in terms of volume. There was a LOT of water moving over the falls. In fact the mist was everywhere. Problematically so. I set up far back to avoid the mist, set up the freezing tripod, reach into the camera bag and... You know, many say the most important tool in the bag is a rag, or a bubble level, or a flashlight. I beg to differ. The most important thing in the bag is the camera. Want to guess whats not in my bag? Yep. I had it in the front seat of the car and all the tree moving, and tree scraping, I had forgot where the Canon was. So beat again. Whats that I hear, is that Newberry laughing at me? Oh no, this was not going to happen.
The tired family was not at all upset. They were happy to formulate a plan to have me go back while they sat in the majesty of this fall. My wife rocks. So my daughter (the peanut) and I trek back for the car. Naturally, as I was heading back to the car the sun broke. Damn you Newberry, I still hear you laughing. We get the Canon, get back to the falls, over the fallen trees, past the stacked stones, soaked from the plants that block the path. The sun did come out for a bit, there were even some rainbows (not in this image). The mist was the real challenge. Shoot, wipe, repeat. Shoot, wipe repeat. One of those situations where you keep the rag over the camera between shoots. All in all, I need to go back under better lighting someday, but I got good enough images to get back at Newberry. And I am planning a revenge trip back to that Volcanic evil as well.
Let me know what you think. Its been a while since I posted.
Upper Downing Creek Falls
Well, spring has sprung, and I am expecting the waterfall mania to start, for me anyway. When I was in Europe I was traveling in hostels (a goooood number of years ago) and I would chat with many backpackers. They all continuously brought up a desire NOT to see any more cathedrals. In fact, they had a term for it, they called it NAFC, "not another f#$&ing cathedral." I suppose I am guilty of doing the same with waterfalls. My cute sister even begs me to shoot anything else. Sorry Sis.
I almost hate to tell you anything about this one, because its hard as hell to find, and a large part of wants to keep it that way. Its no real secret, but I will tell you, it is hands down my favorite falls so far here in the Pacific Northwest. Hard to find, and hard to shoot, but beautiful. I had never even seen images of the falls before, never knew about it at all. But a total dud of a trip to Newberry Volcanic Monument found my family driving home disappointed (another story), and seeking at least one cool thing to see on the trip. My wife starts combing the web on her phone and finds that we are passing this gem. Wow, the minute I saw the falls I knew we had to stop. My wife, knowing how pissed I was at Newberry said, lets do it. Besides, the harder it is to get to, the more my wife likes it.
The turn off the road is very, very easy to miss. Once we found the turn off, the road was blocked by a tree just 100 feet in. Seems this fall did not want to be seen. I got out of the car and looked up the rest of the road. They call that a road? It was overgrown. Badly overgrown. But I think the new Subaru (whom the kids now call, The Professor because its plum colored) can make it. Still seething with anger at Newberry I pull out a shovel with a serrated saw edge and start sawing the tree. I was not going to get beat again, but I am not sure I would have won against this tree either! My 10 year old son, the wiz that he is, starts looking around and points out that tire tracks go around the tree. Hum. So I muster the anger and channel it into super human strength and pull the tree aside just enough for the wife to drive around. Take that Newberry. We are in.
We scrape past the overgrown landscape, and it turns out I was wrong. The Professor has paid the cost of my blind ambition (or my lust) and it now features mean scratches down both sides. Ops. Well, stuff is for the using I guess, so my wife reminds me (a phrase I use a lot, and she is right). We drive as far as we can, basically where two downed trees totally block the road. On foot now. Using a bad set of directions we found on the net, we stumble, in the rain and snow, with two kids through the thicket.
The directions proved almost useless, but our ears did not. after about a mile we could hear the water. The roar. The call. The rain is letting up. My tripod is cold, I can hardly hold anymore. A stack of stones helps assure that we are on the right path. There really is no trail but the sound is helping guide us. My wife has the kids between us on the trail because she thinks there could be bears here.
We get to a waterfall, but is that it? A bit lackluster, not sure its the one in the image, so we press on. Through the trees we finally see her. Wow. Now, it had been raining quite a bit, in fact there was snow 5 miles up the road. Still some here and there on the trail too. Point is, the falls were in full glory because there was so much water around, and so were the dozens of other smaller falls that flanked the giant. She was not so giant in terms of height, but in terms of volume. There was a LOT of water moving over the falls. In fact the mist was everywhere. Problematically so. I set up far back to avoid the mist, set up the freezing tripod, reach into the camera bag and... You know, many say the most important tool in the bag is a rag, or a bubble level, or a flashlight. I beg to differ. The most important thing in the bag is the camera. Want to guess whats not in my bag? Yep. I had it in the front seat of the car and all the tree moving, and tree scraping, I had forgot where the Canon was. So beat again. Whats that I hear, is that Newberry laughing at me? Oh no, this was not going to happen.
The tired family was not at all upset. They were happy to formulate a plan to have me go back while they sat in the majesty of this fall. My wife rocks. So my daughter (the peanut) and I trek back for the car. Naturally, as I was heading back to the car the sun broke. Damn you Newberry, I still hear you laughing. We get the Canon, get back to the falls, over the fallen trees, past the stacked stones, soaked from the plants that block the path. The sun did come out for a bit, there were even some rainbows (not in this image). The mist was the real challenge. Shoot, wipe, repeat. Shoot, wipe repeat. One of those situations where you keep the rag over the camera between shoots. All in all, I need to go back under better lighting someday, but I got good enough images to get back at Newberry. And I am planning a revenge trip back to that Volcanic evil as well.
Let me know what you think. Its been a while since I posted.