main falls

Welcome back to my blog! This week I visited Great Falls, a very different, supposedly greater, kind of waterfall compared to those that I visited last week. While perhaps they may not be greater in beauty — they are both beautiful — these falls are certainly a tinny bit larger. Last time I visited Great Falls was over four years ago when I was in the 8th grade and just after I got my first camera! For fun I hunted through some old SD in an attempt to find photos from then, a task which I succeeded at. At the bottom of this post I put some of the better ones I took if anyone’s curious. Honestly, they’re not as bad as I was expecting, though I’ve definitely improved! Needless, I still have some great photos from even back then. Even if its not Great Falls when I look back at some of the photos I took while my family visited Bar Harbor which was around the same time, I can say that even now I think that some photos I took then look great and I’m proud of them. Enough old time nostalgia, lets get to the present or at least recent present of me at Great Falls.

My adventures began like last week, waking up at about 7 then taking 2ish hours to hit the road. Most of the time was spent making sure my backpack was adequately overpacked. At some point I should share a photo of my backpack as with how large it is as it looks like I could spend a month backpacking! Like last week, I brought my tripod, but unlike last week, I could not get any of the luscious long exposures I achieved, more on that later. After getting all my things together I got driving to the falls, a much shorter drive though less pretty trip compared to last weeks' drive. After arriving, I grabbed my pack and got on the path following the river. The overlook for the falls came up almost immediately as its quite close to the parking lot. Being a weekday morning the park was not busy and I got to have the whole overlook to myself. Like last week, I figured I’d take some long exposure shots of the falls. But, this week I did not have the same success as last. With no clouds, trees or anything to block the harsh sunlight, even with a narrowed aperture and my cameras lowest iso I could not achieve a proper exposure. The scene was just too bright to have the shutter set to anything less then a 15th/sec which at that point the effect was barley noticeable and yet it was still a little over exposed. At that point I gave up on using the tripod and took some photos hand held with a shutter speed closer to a 500th, a lot more manageable in the harsh light. Harsh light in general is the most difficult light to take photos in. The shadows are inky dark and yet the sky is still blinding. Yet its still rewarding to take photos in this light. I find it unfortunate that if you search landscape photography, 80% of the photos are during golden hour and the remaining 20% on a cloudy day. Nothing is wrong with golden hour or the soft shadows from a cloudy day, they’re all lovley, just why limit the expression of photography to just a few hours of the day, or optimal weather conditions? There is a whole world out there! After taking some more photos, I continued to the path. For this trip, I decided on a more convoluted route, one that had me following the river its full length then taking a path that connected me to some country trails that then reconnected to the park and took the “swamp” trail on the way back. Sure its kinda confusing, but hey it was enjoyable 5mi loop. Needless I am glad I printed a map with the route as otherwise I would have been forced to just turn around instead of making a loop out of it.

The river path was quite pretty (no surprises there), with magnificent views into the river gorge. I stopped many times taking photos as I went, one of which I placed below. For this trip I had too many photos to fit inline so I spent some time figuring out how to add a gallery in Hugo (the site generator this uses) so if I reference photos but they’re not inline scroll to the bottom.

river passing with stony outcrop

The path continued in much a similar way as it wound along with the river. As I continued the river became much calmer compared to what it was closer to the falls. Somewhere about then I found a nice rock to sit with a view and ate my lunch as it was almost midday and I hadn’t had much of a breakfast. Below is the view I had for lunch.

lunch view with river bend

After taking my time watching the water flow and the occasional fish jumping from the river I continued on my adventure. After a little bit I took a small trail that went down to the river where there was a little beach with sand and all! I suspect the river was quite a bit lower than its usual state based on how much sand their was and the past lack of rain. Again there are too many photos to put here so scroll to the bottom to see them all. One of the cool things about this beach is on the path to there it was almost silent, however the beach its self had the echos from the falls canaled though the george. While I was there I quickly took a panorama of the area, nothing impressive, but at this beach the river bent so it was almost a little peninsula. While I failed at capturing that aspect it still is cool. At that point I also took a selfie because I was told that people want to see my face, I know, like why, but its in the bottom if you want to see it.

river beach

I then returned to the path which took me steeply uphill and soon to a path following difficult run, the next leg of my mini journey. Difficult run, a tributary to the Potomac, looks basically like a mini version of it even with many mini 1 or 2 feet falls! I took many photos of this lovely creek, couple of which are in the gallery at the bottom of the page.

dificult run

I followed the creek tell I passed a sign informing me that I was leaving the National Park. At that point the path shifted to a slightly less official, though no less used, connector to some county trails. This path quickly led me under an overpass to some country trails which led by a spot in the road where I could pass back onto the park. From this point the trails I followed were the typical but no less lovley forest variety. The route I took led me on to what was supposedly called the swamp trail. While I still havn’t figured out the swamp part it was certainly a pretty trial with large spaced out trees forming a lovely canopy.

lovely canopy

While its now fall and some trees may be changing colors, but when looking up at the trees it might as well have been summer! The aforementioned “swamp” trail continued to a part that maybe if it hadn’t been dry would actually be swampy. Here I heard a toad or frog croaking though I couldn’t find it to photograph :(. I continued walking and quickly found myself back at the parking lot and on my way home.

the maybe sawmp