DIFFERENT
If you know this location and if you are looking closely you may be wondering how this image was taken. You should be wondering. It is an impossibility. Well, not really. I guess that is obvious. But in reality, for most of the year it *is* an impossibility.
My goal was singular. Cross Pyramid Creek at the bottom of Horsetail Falls and photograph the waterfall from the other side. I have been thinking about doing this for a long time now. For such a long time, that my brain began to hurt. As far as I know, no one has done this before. At least, I have never seen any images from the other side before. For most of the year, Pyramid Creek is rushing too swiftly. It is simply impossible to cross the creek here. If you want to live, that is. When I was here three weeks ago, the creek was still just a tad too swift to cross. I think I could have done it, however I decided to wait just a tad longer. I should have done it earlier.
Fast forward three weeks, and I decided to try it again. The difference was astounding. During those three weeks, Pyramid Creek lost more than 50 percent of its flow. No exaggeration. What happened? How could it have dropped so much flow in such a short time? I was shocked. Indeed, as I hiked up to the waterfall, I anticipated that I might not even need to get my feet wet crossing the creek. And as it turned out, I did not need to. I arrived at the base of the falls and saw that I could rock hop across to the other side. There is no way I could even come close to doing this three weeks ago, but today it was easy. The waterfall flow clearly was not very exciting, so I decided to do more experimenting with another really long exposure – this one is 120 seconds. If I had been able to cross three weeks ago, the waterfall image would have been much more impressive. I just waited a bit too long to try this but now, I will have to wait until next year to try it again. I will not be back to Horsetail Falls this year.
Speaking of next year, the early reports are not looking too promising. It seems we might be looking at another weak El Nino, the same as last year. That could mean another dry winter for us. It is too early to know of course, so let us hope this is not the case. Start praying now.
September 2nd, 2013 at 5:11 pm
Awesome shot. I went up Sunday night about 10pm to do some light painting and wanted to get across to that side as well. My partners were not as gung ho.
September 2nd, 2013 at 9:06 pm
Leon, if you are not opposed to getting wet, a lot of people swim in the pool there. I was there a 4-6 weeks ago and there were people swimming. It may be possible to get across if you can hold the camera above water! Just make sure you don’t try it when the water is too high, then the pool is not safe to swim in.
The sudden decrease in flow is likely from SMUD. They control the output at the Lake Aloha dam (further into Desolation Wilderness) for their Hydro Plant.
September 3rd, 2013 at 4:31 am
Thanks Joey and Justin. 4-6 weeks ago the water was still flowing quite strong. If there were people swimming right above the lower waterfall, that would seem to me to be very dangerous and stupid.