Falls

The weather has been glorious for the past week, so Tracy and David and I drove up to the Blue Ridge Parkway and hiked down to White Rock Gap Falls.

Well, it's nice to put it that way. Actually, on Saturday, Tracy and I went by ourselves in search of the falls, didn't have a map, and completely missed them. We followed trails on the wrong side of the mountain, in fact. But on Sunday, we did have a map (makes a big difference) and the hike was pleasant, short, and easy. The trail actually passes above the falls before making a big loop around to come again to the base of the falls: there are some short (~30-50ft) cliffs bordering the falls that the trail circumnavigates, rather than descending over. If you're brave and careful, you should be able to easily make it down the cliffs and save time.

I bought a new tripod, since the one I had wasn't rigid enough to make me happy when using it. Quantaray, not terribly expensive, but rated for 11lbs, not heavy itself, and quite stable. I didn't have a neutral density filter when I took these pictures (I've one on the way, now), but it was dark enough that I could get nice long exposure times with the lens stopped down to f22 - some 15 seconds for the photo above and some 30 seconds for the photo at left.

We hope to go back sometime after there's been some actual rain. It's dry here, and the falls are low - just trickles, really. You'll be seeing those photos after it happens.