Posted by Tom Kennon on March 29, 2009 at 10:28 PM
Gale Rainwater and I went waterfall chasing yesterday and made our way up to Keefe Falls. The route was pretty clear with most of the damage close to the falls. Two interesting notes. Someone has marked a trail with surveyor's tape all the way to the falls and someone has been in there with chainsaws and cleared a path. The debris limited the field of view some, so sorry about cutting off the bottom of this shot some. The good news is there was a little color showing up.
We also made it back to Pam's Grotto barely before dark and there is no damage from the ice storm in this area.
I could not believe the FLOOD on Falling Water yesterday morning - where did all of that come from, holy cow!? I'll post a short video on the Journal tomorrow that was taken there early yesterday morning. Our workshop visited many other waterfall areas yesterday and never saw anything like that - probably the highest I'd ever seen it.
That is very weird about the trail being cut out up to Keefe Falls - I wonder if Terry did it? Probably not.
Tim, the highest you have ever seen it? That sounds pretty high considering how many times you have probably seen that waterfall. The Glory Hole and stuff around it were flowing very well but not crazy high. I almost have a bone to pick with you though. Lichen falls is extremely easy to get to but very difficult to actually get down into. Luckily I am a bit crazy and don't mind hanging from a tree to get in and out. Did anyone have any snow/rain issues during the workshop? I sure did.
By the way Brian Cormack and I walked probably a half of a mile from Arbaugh rd. East towards Ozone on the OHT and there are a few downed trees due to ice. It was just on top and it wasn't too bad but there was one tree that may need a couple of cuts. I tried to break a couple of logs myself but the Forestry Service had me shaking in my boots. I was worried they may try and burn me since I was the driest thing around.
Posted by Tom Kennon on March 29, 2009 at 11:43 PM
Tim, we were at Falling Water Falls at about 1:00pm. Here is a shot at that time. It looked like it was still rising. I will look for the video tomorrow.
I thought maybe the OHT crews took a detour and went up there?
Nice shot Tom (for some reason it looks familiar to me). The redbud tree shot really turned out nice also. What a great day it was to be out! Spring and big water is very special to me and these conditions always gets my blood pumping. It was another wet day to file away in my memories and look back on when it's dry and hot. I'm kinda suprised Tim would mention this as being so high of a level. I have seen it many times at this level and paddled Falling Water at this level. Richland crested at about 6' that's big but it does get bigger. After some big thunderstorms it will flash up around 10' kinda like it did yesterday to 6'. When Richland got alot of the damage it was over the bridge at the campground. The lack of new leaves in this area really sends all the water straight down the creeks. Hopefully the rain will continue this spring at a nice steady pace of fronts coming through.
Anyway nice work again on the shot. I look forward to seeing your others.
Tom your shot of Falling Water above pretty much says it all. I guess I would not normally go there with such high water since the photos would not be worth anything to me (I don't like muddy falls for photos), but as boaters I can see this would be heaven for you guys! I did not see high water anywhere else this weekend - in fact other falls were still running clear from rains the other day and very little new rain actually fell that I could tell. Glory Hole was just barely running well, as Matthew noted, as were Home Valley Bluff falls - it must have been a Falling Water drainage thing. The volunteer crews actually cut out the trail from the Falling Water bridge to the big mud slide just yesterday, so it was not them who cut out to Keefe Falls - but I'm glad for whoever did it - a spur trail up to this falls would be great! (and hope they didn't get caught)
No issues with snow/rain for our workshop folks - the snow was great. The only problem we had was the fact that the sky did not clear off until after 5am Sunday, and that was too late - we had planned to do some lightpainting and star work at 3. We spent the morning at Home Valley...
Posted by Aaron Szabo on March 30, 2009 at 2:26 PM
Great shots here Tom! The purple and green really add to the Keefe shot, and the Orton works well for Early Spring. The amount of water at Falling Water Falls is incredible!
Posted by Wayne Rhodus on March 30, 2009 at 8:59 PM
Boy the redbud colors just jump off the monitor on this one Tom. Falling Water Falls didn't look like that when you took me there last fall. And a nice collection of images on your site. Thanks for sharing!
Discussion
8 repliesWe also made it back to Pam's Grotto barely before dark and there is no damage from the ice storm in this area.
Here is a link to a photo from Pam's Grotto and a field near the Big Piney with the Orton Effect applied: http://208.76.245.162/~tom/gallery.php?gallery=recentphotos
I could not believe the FLOOD on Falling Water yesterday morning - where did all of that come from, holy cow!? I'll post a short video on the Journal tomorrow that was taken there early yesterday morning. Our workshop visited many other waterfall areas yesterday and never saw anything like that - probably the highest I'd ever seen it.
That is very weird about the trail being cut out up to Keefe Falls - I wonder if Terry did it? Probably not.
By the way Brian Cormack and I walked probably a half of a mile from Arbaugh rd. East towards Ozone on the OHT and there are a few downed trees due to ice. It was just on top and it wasn't too bad but there was one tree that may need a couple of cuts. I tried to break a couple of logs myself but the Forestry Service had me shaking in my boots. I was worried they may try and burn me since I was the driest thing around.
I thought maybe the OHT crews took a detour and went up there?
Anyway nice work again on the shot. I look forward to seeing your others.
No issues with snow/rain for our workshop folks - the snow was great. The only problem we had was the fact that the sky did not clear off until after 5am Sunday, and that was too late - we had planned to do some lightpainting and star work at 3. We spent the morning at Home Valley...
I just watched Tim Ernst's video clip of it here: http://www.arkansasphotosonline.com/Videos/032809fallingwater2.mov