Hiking Behind Covel Falls
Aug. 10th, 2022 09:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerWhat's better than hiking to a waterfall? How about hiking behind a waterfall! That's exactly what the trail at Covel Falls in Gifford Pinchot National Forest does.
Getting there takes a bit of doing, though. The trailhead is in a remote area. There are BRIDGE OUT AHEAD signs on the trail— and the bridges actually are gone. We hiked it anyway. And the trail gets steep in a few places. We climbed at least a few hundred feet to get to the falls. Then we walked around the corner of a cliff face, and this beautiful scene appeared below us:
Covel Falls fall in about an 80' drop from a rocky ledge. Not all of the drop is visible from this angle because of that rock overhang covering the upper part of the falls. But that overhang also means there's plenty of room to walk behind the falls.
Here's a ~30 second video I recorded:
Even better, we had this area to ourselves. There were only a few other cars parked down at the trailhead, and to this point we'd seen none of our fellow hikers on the trail.
I took advantage of the solitude to be unhurried at the falls. I swapped lenses on my camera to use a super-wide angle lens... only to discover it wasn't working! I fiddled with it for several minutes, turning the camera off and back on numerous times, detaching and reattaching the lens, cleaning the electronic contacts, etc. Nothing worked.
I was pretty pissed. That lens was expensive. And it's heavy. I carried it all the way up here only for it to die the moment I was ready to use it! As I gave up and started climbing the trail on the far side of the falls I seriously considering dropping it off the cliff.
Then I gave the lens one more try. The dang thing worked. Fortunately I was only a few hundred feet past the falls. I went back to take several more pictures.
While I was doing this bonus round of photography (I went back under the falls after making the photo above) another pair of hikers arrived at the falls. The first human beings other than ourselves we'd seen since leaving the trailhead! I asked them if they knew about the trail conditions and the BRIDGE OUT AHEAD warnings. They laughed and said those signs have been up for years, and locals know to ignore them. Yup, another case of "TRAIL CLOSED to weaksauce city folk"! 🤣
Oh, I mentioned making photos from behind the falls?
Capturing photos like this is why I lug around that heavy super-wide lens!
Update: there's more climbing and more waterfalls as we hike to Angel Falls.
Getting there takes a bit of doing, though. The trailhead is in a remote area. There are BRIDGE OUT AHEAD signs on the trail— and the bridges actually are gone. We hiked it anyway. And the trail gets steep in a few places. We climbed at least a few hundred feet to get to the falls. Then we walked around the corner of a cliff face, and this beautiful scene appeared below us:
Covel Falls fall in about an 80' drop from a rocky ledge. Not all of the drop is visible from this angle because of that rock overhang covering the upper part of the falls. But that overhang also means there's plenty of room to walk behind the falls.
Here's a ~30 second video I recorded:
Even better, we had this area to ourselves. There were only a few other cars parked down at the trailhead, and to this point we'd seen none of our fellow hikers on the trail.
I took advantage of the solitude to be unhurried at the falls. I swapped lenses on my camera to use a super-wide angle lens... only to discover it wasn't working! I fiddled with it for several minutes, turning the camera off and back on numerous times, detaching and reattaching the lens, cleaning the electronic contacts, etc. Nothing worked.
I was pretty pissed. That lens was expensive. And it's heavy. I carried it all the way up here only for it to die the moment I was ready to use it! As I gave up and started climbing the trail on the far side of the falls I seriously considering dropping it off the cliff.
Then I gave the lens one more try. The dang thing worked. Fortunately I was only a few hundred feet past the falls. I went back to take several more pictures.
While I was doing this bonus round of photography (I went back under the falls after making the photo above) another pair of hikers arrived at the falls. The first human beings other than ourselves we'd seen since leaving the trailhead! I asked them if they knew about the trail conditions and the BRIDGE OUT AHEAD warnings. They laughed and said those signs have been up for years, and locals know to ignore them. Yup, another case of "TRAIL CLOSED to weaksauce city folk"! 🤣
Oh, I mentioned making photos from behind the falls?
Capturing photos like this is why I lug around that heavy super-wide lens!
Update: there's more climbing and more waterfalls as we hike to Angel Falls.
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Date: 2022-08-11 05:39 am (UTC)