Nature is a force to be reckoned with!

You hear this statement most often when there’s a big event like a hurricane or a tornado, but nature’s might can be witnessed in smaller displays as well.  The cascade above, known to my photography friends and I as simply “the fan”, has been a favorite for as long as I can remember.  However, for the last several years there has been a massive log jam camped out right on top of it.  The logs making up the jam were so hopelessly big, in fact, that I had personally given up on the spot, thinking there is no way it would ever clear.  Well, I was wrong!  At the beginning of March we had a TON of rain, which created a flooding event on the Middle Prong, among other places.  The waters were so elevated that it actually moved the log jam, seemingly in its entirety, downstream about fifty to one hundred yards.  Imagine my surprise to find it now completely clean, and ready for me to share it’s beauty again with the world!  🙂

Admittedly after I took this image I thought to myself, I should return here in the fall and capture it in fall colors.  This is frankly the fate of many of my summertime stream scenes; I take a picture that I like in the summer, but then never publish it because I’m convinced I can get a better shot while the leaves are at their peak colors… and well, I typically don’t like to post pictures of the same spot over and over. But, as nature has a way of doing, the tree leaning in the background has now fallen and last I saw had collected itself right at the top of the cascade, just where the previous log jam had been.  I suspect that as more rains come, it will gather some friends again and we’ll have to wait once more for nature to flex its muscles, and flush our beloved scene clean again.

More next week! 

–Dan Thompson