Happy Anniversary to Us!
We celebrated 23 years together on a gorgeous summer day of waterfalls, waterfalls, and more waterfalls. We returned to Sahale and Koosah Falls to shoot them in better light this morning. There were a few more people today, but we still felt like we had the area to ourselves. The temperatures had dropped to the upper 70's, and it was a great morning to be hiking around the waterfalls.
Sahale Falls
Koosah Falls
Proxy Falls
Our main goal for the day was Proxy Falls. This is one of my favorite waterfalls anywhere because of its unusual flow over the blocks in the cliff. This year, the volume of the river was higher and there was less moss on the rocks, so the shots weren't as good as last time.
There is a wide, well-maintened trail from the parking area to the ridge across from Proxy Falls. But that's where the trail ends. Then you're on your own to figure out a way to scramble over rocks, over and under downed trees, and down a very steep hillside to reach the basin Proxy Falls drops into. The higher stream flow this year also made it much more difficult to get to the shooting areas. We're past the age where we cross logs over the stream carrying all our camera gear, so we had to settle for alternative shooting spots. I managed to reach a small island out in the middle of the stream to shoot from, and Carol found some logs to get some height above the stream.
By the time we drove to Proxy Falls and hiked down to Lower Proxy Falls, it was 4:30. The sun was still very bright on the top of the falls, so we had lots of challenges with contrast again. It's difficult to shoot the entire Proxy Falls because of the huge contrast between the bright light at the top of the falls and the shadows at the base. Unless it's an overcast day (which we have been hoping for at some point on this part of the trip), you have to try to shoot sections of the falls that have similar lighting conditions. Proxy is a great waterfall for shooting sections because it has several areas of steps as the water tumbles down. As the afternoon wore on, trees on the ridge behind us shaded the middle section of the waterfall more, and the light became a little more even. That meant re-shooting many of the earlier shots in better light. As we started talking about packing up, we saw new areas where the light was warming up, so we decided to keep shooting. And then when we started putting everything away, I saw one more area I wanted to shoot near the base of the falls. That's when the rainbow appeared. You have to shoot the rainbow! I'm sure you "get the picture." Eventually, after 2 1/2 hours and 1100 images, we packed up our gear, crawled up and over downed trees, and scrambled straight up the side of the log-clogged hill. It wasn't a very tall hill, but it was quite an obstacle course to reach the top. We tried out lots of gymnastic moves we haven't used in a very long time.
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It took us over an hour to get back to camp, and it was nearly dark when we arrived. We had a big celebration dinner planned, but it was "called due to darkness." We settled for hot dogs and celebratory anniversary cards.
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