Mosher Hills Falls

Maine Week Travelog #22
Farmington, ME - Saturday, 19 Jun 2021, 12:30pm.

We got a bit of a late start from Bangor this morning. Gloomy skies and spots of rain in the forecast gave us pause about whether today would be a good day for hiking. When we did some grocery shopping to keep down our dependence on eating in restaurants it started to drizzle on us. We decided to do what we could.

The drive out to our first hiking stop, Mosher Hills Falls, took nearly 2 hours. Part of that was us driving back and forth over the last few miles trying to find this very obscure waterfalls. It turns out the trailhead is unmarked and is simply a two-car wide gravel pullout off a county road in what looks like private property. The stream that feeds the falls is narrow enough to step over in many places, so that didn't serve as a helpful landmark, either. Altogether we didn't hit the hiking trail until noon. It was fortunate, then, that the falls is not far from the road.

A trail of less than 1/4 mile leads to the top of the falls. From there a trail zig-zags down to the bottom of the canyon and... kinda goes upstream. There's also a trail up the opposite bank that provides a good view of the falls.



For all its obscurity, Mosher Hills Falls is actually a fairly tall waterfall. I'd say it at least 60' high. Right now the water flow is very low, though, so it's not much to look at. It's more like a seep or "weeping wall" than a waterfall. Pictures online show it with significantly higher flow... perhaps earlier in the spring melt season.

The positive side of this being such an obscure location is hat we had it to ourselves... almost. We spotted one other hiker a distance above us on the trail while we were at the falls. She seemed to spook, like a deer, when she saw us. We didn't see her again, nor did we see or hear her car at the trailhead.

Smalls Falls

Maine Week Travelog #23
Sandy River, ME - Saturday, 19 Jun 2021, 2pm.

I made it abundantly clear in blogs earlier this week that Maine has a lot of poorly chosen place names. Today we found another one: Smalls Falls. These falls are small only compared to the biggest waterfalls out there. For Maine, especially, these are pretty awesome!



Lots of other folks think these falls are awesome, too. The parking lot was crowded (by Maine standards; in California it'd be overflowing 1/4 mile up and down the road) and the pool at the bottom of the falls was full of people wading in the water. I timed the pic above to look about as un-crowded as I could manage.

While you can wade into the pool beneath the lower falls— and many people do— there's also a footbridge leading to the opposite side. From there the steep slope up the falls is just passable enough to climb your way up. We did, along with various others.



As you climb up the opposite side more segments of the falls keep coming into view. It's awesome that there's so much to see here in such a short distance.



The upper sections of the falls had fewer people at them. We enjoying walking out on the bare rock. We weren't really interested in wading in the pools or skidding down some of the chutes... although other people were. For us the water was cold and the air wasn't really warm enough for "Let's take a dip in chilly water!" Maybe that's a difference between Mainers and Californians.

The weather held out through part of our time at Smalls Falls. Suddenly the skies darkened and within minutes it was raining! Stay tuned for what happened next....

Rain in Maine? I Fain Remain!

Maine Week Travelog #24
Sandy River, ME - Saturday, 19 Jun 2021, 2:30pm.

While we were exploring the upper parts of Smalls Falls today it started to rain. I got lots of pictures while it was still sunny; see previous blog. When the rain blew in fast the fun times were over... for most people, but not for me! As everyone else was scurry to get off the rocks, out of the water, and to shelter, I was enjoying photographing the area in a new light.



I do mean new light literally. A heavily clouded sky casts light of a different color on things below. But even more important than that, it casts less light. With less light I can set my camera to use a slower exposure. With a slower exposure I can create motion blur. One type of motion is flowing water. Less light = longer exposure times = these silky ribbons of water that are a fun photographic effect to create.

Staying out in the rain was not only awesome for taking cool pictures like the one above, it felt awesome being the one person not scurrying for cover. It was like I had a superpower to withstand water. ...Which is funny, because so many people who were fleeing the rain were wearing swimsuits and were deliberately getting wet in the water. Why are they afraid of a little rain?



Alas I was not wearing a swimsuit... but I had a rain jacket in the car, so I went back to put that on. I also grabbed my tripod, to assist with taking slow-exposure pictures. In the first pic I braced the camera against a tree. There were no trees in the basin at the bottom, so that's where I used my tripod instead.

And again, it was amusing that a bit of water falling from the sky chased out all the people dressed in swimsuits soaking themselves in the water. With my rain jacket keeping my top half dry and sandals on my feet I had no worries about walking out through the water to get the right picture. In the shot above I am standing on a shoal.... I walked through the water to get to it then picked shallow rocks to stand on because the water is cold to stand in for 10 minutes while taking pictures!



Here's an example of the kind of picture I got in the rain, standing in the middle of the water, with my camera on a tripod. Notice how the water looks like silk curtains— that's an effect of motion blur— while the rocks and trees are sharply in focus because the camera is stabilized on a stand.

I couldn't take these pictures when the sun was out because there was too much light. With the sun behind rainclouds this opportunity arose. I could have simulated the reduction in light with a darkening filter on my lens... I do have some such filters, but they're for the lens I accidentally a few days ago. 😨