The extreme sport of waterfall hunting.
by Zeb Andrews
I live in Oregon, a state that over 790 different waterfalls call home. On most maps, Oregon is located directly south of Washington, where more than 1200 waterfalls can be found. Together these two states are a waterfallholic's candy store, so is it any surprise that I find myself at them so often? I don't get my fix from jumping off of a bridge with a giant rubber band tied around me, or by driving really expensive cars at very high speeds. My life-affirming moments come when I am braced on a mossy rock, muddy from the knees down, and squinting into the near blinding spray of some waterfall, more often than not trying to keep the lens of my camera clear long enough to get in a good shot.
One would assume that after all this time, I would have an inkling of understanding just what it is about falling water that so fascinates us. The power? Grace? Beauty? Relentlessness? All of the above? If nature were an organized religion, waterfalls would be her cathedrals. We gather there, and whether it is conscious thought or not, they humble us and remind us that this type of beauty is an amazing natural resource.
But enough of the philosophical musing, you probably want to hear more of the juicy gossip, such as the time I dropped my camera over the edge of a waterfall and had to climb down the cliff face ten feet or so to retrieve it (Eagle Falls). I was lucky that it wedged itself in a crack and that it was merely my wooden pinhole which could be dried off and reloaded. Or the time I found myself wading mid-chest through 50 degree water, and in the process completely submerged and drowned my Pentax 6x7 (Lower Oneonta Falls).
I actually kept the roll of film that had been in the camera in my water bottle for four days before drying it in the darkroom and processing it. Don't try that with your digital camera. I have since replaced that camera and returned to that falls to exorcise those demons.
There was the time I literally had to scoot on my butt in an uncontrolled downhill slide down a wet icy path, barely hooking my foot into the supports of a footbridge at the bottom before I slid over the edge (Latourell Falls). That was a very icy and cold January morning and the incredible blues in the ice coating the falls took me breath away.
I could also talk about the 5 hours I spent in the pouring rain that came down so heavily I had to set up my tripod with my umbrella on top and hunker under it to load my cameras between rolls (Silver Falls State Park). By the time I got back to the car, every single piece of clothing I had on was soaked through and my camera backpack took two days to fully dry out. Heck, even the time I first used an SLR camera, a Pentax K1000, was at a waterfall (Multnomah Falls).
Waterfalls are like every other aspect of the great outdoors. You can certainly admire them from the parking lot, but you cannot really experience them from there. It is like reading only the first page of each chapter in a book. You will get the general idea of what is going on, but that is about it. I don't drive out to a waterfall to spend five minutes ooh-ing and aah-ing over it before hopping back in the car and driving off. I go to waterfalls to experience them and to learn their character.
The muddier I get the better. If I can bushwhack my way upstream to another more isolated waterfall, even better. It is in those moments that you create memories more powerful than the best photographs.
I have met plenty of people who have told me that they are amazed I do not get bored shooting waterfalls so often.
"Don't they all look the same to you?", is a common question I get asked.
Ummmm, no.
As a matter of fact, they certainly do not. They actually vary quite a bit. Some are tiered, others fan out down a cliff face. A few spill into punchbowls. There are those that you can walk behind or into and those that jet out of vertical cliffs. I have even seen one that empties into a pool without an outlet stream; the water just soaks into the ground. That, to me, is infinitely interesting. As varied as they come, taking unique photographs of each one is really not that difficult, plus they tend to be much more willing models.
Just like everything else in life, the effort you put into enjoying a waterfall determines what you get out of the experience. Just be sure to take an extra pair of dry shoes along.
Zeb Andrews on imagekind