Grand Falls

The Grand Falls of the Little Colorado River just east of Flagstaff in the Navajo Nation are running at a pretty decent clip now. The peak runoff arrived earlier than usual due to the above average temperatures in the eastern Arizona mountains where the source of the river originates.
With a higher plunge than Niagara Falls, this is a site that is well worth checking out at least once.

Using the USGS Real Time Water Data Charts for Winslow (upstream) and Cameron (downstream) are a big help in determining the peak runoff flows in real time.

Thanks to NPN'er Joel Hazelton of Phoenix for the heads-up on the early arrival!

Looks like a neat place! Love the low light on the falls and the mist.

That's a real nice shot. Thanks for the links...I may have to check this out if the flows happen to still be high in a month.

Wow, John, excellent. I love the textures/light on the foreground water, and the converging lines.. Super!!

This is an extremely cool shot, John! The mix of colors and wild lighting really work well for me.

Love this one, John! A lot of Grand Falls shots seem to be a massive wall of orange/brown. I love the blue line of the river heading downstream here.

This is really wonderful. Great perspective and the light is magical!!!

Don't think I've ever seen a photograph of these falls. I like the mist coming off the falls. Thanks for sharing this.

I also like the cold/warm contrast in this composition.

Do you know if this is a higher than normal runoff year?
I rarely see images of the falls posted, whereas this week the forums have had so many.

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The USGS historical data answered my question. Thanks for the links.
Looks like Jan 1993 was a VERY good month.
Predicting monthly averages would be a tough job for this river!

Sweet shot! I like the contrasting colors, and the way that the blue river leads off into the distance.

This is a unique and intriguing shot, John. A lot to think and explore. I like it quite a bit. It is as has been said, cool, sweet, cool and warm light, has a lot of depth and mystery. The only thing that could possibly improve this is I'm not quite getting the scale of this falls if it has a higher drop than Niagara. That might be a hard thing to accomplish here though. Any shots from different angles or with something such as a person or other identifiable size in it?

John, Very nice! Super light! Was this taken at sunrise or sunset?

I've never heard of this Falls. I've been in the area 2 times and missed it. I'll have to change that next time.

Thanks for your kind words, folks!
I went for an 'unconventional' view of the upper tier of falls while letting the lower tier fall into shadow as the hours passed, knowing that the shadowed areas would reflect the clear, blue skies to a certain degree.

Unfortunately, this view has no sense of scale, as Morris noted. I got there late and didn't have the chance for other more conventional compositions.

Laurie,
This was taken near sunset, which is the optimal time for shooting the falls. One can camp here or drive back to Flagstaff a half hour away. And FWIW, I used an 8x ND filter here to gain a 3 second exposure.

Thanks again, folks!

Boy, this is really nice. The perspective, quality of light, color contrast and the mist are all intriguing. Sense of scale not needed with those qualities. Nice work.

Your making the muddy waters look good John. Nice warm cool contrasts too. It is hard to make out the scale by guestamating how big is each tier is?

A very nice image with the warm waters and the comp adds sooo much depth.

Maybe a tuber or a kayaker going over the falls for a sense of scale? Seriously, I don't think it needs anything for a sense of scale. It's obviously a big falls, it doesn't matter if it is 50 feet high or 100 feet high, it's a beautiful falls and well captured.

This is a real beauty, John. In addition to the many observations already stated, I like the way some of the mist is lit up in front of the falls. You got a real winner here!