I love the color of the sky and the sea of clouds below. I was having fun where I was last saturday (except for losing my car keys) but if I had to be somewhere else this wouldn't be bad! Thanks for sharing.
This is the view from a bluff a few feet from where Hedges Pour-off flows over the edge, which is just off Cave Mountain Road. There are directions in at least one Ernst guide, the waterfall one, I believe. Calling the waterfall Hedges Pour-off is fine, but it seems natural to call the bluff there the Ernst overlook, since he's the one who found it -- or re-found it, as no doubt all the natural features around here were known both to natives and settlers for tens or hundreds of years.
I drove by that spot hundreds of times and always said "I bet there is a waterfall down there." Then one day I decided to stop while the water was flowing well and I was hunting new locations for the waterfall guidebook. Son of a gun there WAS a waterfall, and a whopper too! (3rd tallest in the state) The incredible view was just a bonus, but has been one of my pet locations too - same location the "vertical" rainbow shot was taken at last month. I love the old cedar tree there too, and sunrises during the winter and early spring - as you can see it won't be long before the sun moves too far to the north to be seen from this location, and with a dropoff of more than 100' a foot farther to the right, you will just have to wait until fall when the sun reappears again.
I named the falls after Harold Hedges and his wife (early fighters to save the Buffalo), who lived in a beautiful home below the bluff on the opposite side of the river far below until some local rednecks burned them out on Christmas day years ago. They used to sit on their front porch and gaze up at the waterfalls. Harold told me that one time he counted seven waterfalls pouring off the bluff at this location - now that was a flood!
When I visited the base of the bluff to set the measuring tape, there was an old whiskey barrel under the bluff - not sure if it had been tossed off the top or was in use below the bluff at one time...
I love the tranquil mood of this, Randy. I could sit there and watch the clouds roll by for a good long while. The light and texture in them is wonderful.
I think my all time favorite shot from here was the sunrise in the snow scene that Tim took a few years ago. As I recall, the temperature was near zero, but what a killer shot it was...
I'll tell ya another funny story about that shot. That was around the time of the beginning of the craze to use the legendary Contax Zeiss 21mm lens on Canon fullframe cameras. It remains one of the very finest wide-angle lenses ever made by anyone for any camera system. I used one on my old Contax RTS III film camera and was foaming at the mouth to find one for my Canon 1Ds2. Zeiss no longer made them and used ones were hard to find and very expensive - the lens sold new for $1500. Somehow I got the phone number of a dealer in New York City that might have one, and I called him up. He not only had a new one in the box but also a very rare Zeiss 15mm lens that was priced at more than three grand used, with no box. I had to have both of them!
This guy sold equipment "out of his apartment" in the city, and while it all sounded kind of shady I really HAD to have that 21mm Zeiss, so I told him I would take both lenses - at a cost of almost five grand. He would not take my credit card, and simply said he would ship the lenses to me overnight and I could mail him a personal check whenever I got around to it - obviously it must have been a scam. But sure enough, Fed-X delivered both lenses the next afternoon and they were exactly as described - I could not believe that in this day and age that a guy in New York City would trust someone like me on a deal of this size. He got my check the next day, the same day I shot that snowy tree photo with the very same Zeiss 21mm lens.
I think I paid $1550 for that lens, and I ended up selling it a few months later for $4400 - that is how tough these lenses were to find!
And yes, right before I made that photo I was at the very edge of that 110' bluff setting up for another shot and slipped and almost went over the edge - my prized lens would have gone with me...
Discussion
8 repliesI named the falls after Harold Hedges and his wife (early fighters to save the Buffalo), who lived in a beautiful home below the bluff on the opposite side of the river far below until some local rednecks burned them out on Christmas day years ago. They used to sit on their front porch and gaze up at the waterfalls. Harold told me that one time he counted seven waterfalls pouring off the bluff at this location - now that was a flood!
When I visited the base of the bluff to set the measuring tape, there was an old whiskey barrel under the bluff - not sure if it had been tossed off the top or was in use below the bluff at one time...
I think my all time favorite shot from here was the sunrise in the snow scene that Tim took a few years ago. As I recall, the temperature was near zero, but what a killer shot it was...
This guy sold equipment "out of his apartment" in the city, and while it all sounded kind of shady I really HAD to have that 21mm Zeiss, so I told him I would take both lenses - at a cost of almost five grand. He would not take my credit card, and simply said he would ship the lenses to me overnight and I could mail him a personal check whenever I got around to it - obviously it must have been a scam. But sure enough, Fed-X delivered both lenses the next afternoon and they were exactly as described - I could not believe that in this day and age that a guy in New York City would trust someone like me on a deal of this size. He got my check the next day, the same day I shot that snowy tree photo with the very same Zeiss 21mm lens.
I think I paid $1550 for that lens, and I ended up selling it a few months later for $4400 - that is how tough these lenses were to find!
And yes, right before I made that photo I was at the very edge of that 110' bluff setting up for another shot and slipped and almost went over the edge - my prized lens would have gone with me...