Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Ainsworth State Park, OR, Day 3

Stream Below Wahcella Falls
Tuesday, May 13, 2014, Ainsworth State Park, OR, Day 3 - 0 miles, 8535.4 For the Trip

Another day, and two more waterfalls. I headed out around 8:30, bound & determined to get to both falls before the sun came over the sides of the gorge. I didn't quite make it, but at least the falls were both in shade. I found that, as usual, I spent more time photographing the cascades in the stream than the waterfalls, at least with Wahclella Falls.

After the Wahclella Falls hike, I stopped to see the sturgeon pond at the local fish hatchery across the road. While we have a few sturgeon in the Oswego River in NY, I don't believe any of them get to the size of these. The largest was over 10' long. Photos are tough because they are through a glass window, but still interesting. They also have many other buildings & ponds, etc at the hatchery, including a section filled with huge rainbow trout, but I didn't get to all of them since I still wanted to shoot Elowah Falls. They do have the nicest decorated restrooms I've seen in awhile.

The stream feeding Elowah Falls is too far below the trail for most of the way to photograph it, but there were a number of lovely cascades hundreds of feet below & through the trees. At the falls, the spray made taking photos tough. I had to attempt to line up the shot with the camera covered, then pull the cover long enough to shoot. I still managed to take a number of images covered with droplets of spray. There is a wonderful shot of this waterfall taken by Darren White in the Photographing Oregon book by Greg Vaughn (it is a book in the same format as the series "Photographing the Southwest" by Laurent Martres). I could figure out where he positioned the camera to take it, but he must be younger than I am; I skipped the climb down a steep, wet bank of rock & gravel. Still, if you have the book, check the image on page 152. Excellent! Lots of photographs at today's LakeshoreImages page.

After Elowah Falls I headed back to the campground & signed up for one more day. Nothing from REI on my shelter sides - I was hoping they would be in early, but it still looks like the scheduled date of Thursday, or later. I do need to find a campground that has a laundry or a laundromat, so depending on what I hear (or don't hear) from REI, I'll have to decide where to head tomorrow. Since every mile towards Portland is a mile away from Maryhill State Park (my Thursday destination), I'll skip heading west if I don't hear from them.

I'm trying to make room in the freezer, so dinner is going to be another Amy's Cheese Enchilada. After posting, I'm going to sit out in the sun & enjoy the warm weather!

Until tomorrow -

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