It’s not every day you get to see a frozen waterfall! In fact for me, it had been years! Back in January we had a string of below freezing days that followed a light snowfall. The Smokies were closed for days due to poor road conditions, leaving me to dream about what all I was missing inside the frozen wonderland! Anyway, I had it in my head I wanted to go up in the Tremont area, but the gravel road that goes beyond the ranger station there continued to be closed after the other roads started opening up. I happened to email a friend who works at Tremont to see if the road was maybe open, but the website was still showing it closed, and she responded that no, the road was still closed, BUT that the falls were frozen and I should go see that. So I did!
I managed to talk Holly into coming along on the chilly adventure, which is always helpful for these night scenes. We arrived at the falls at dusk – still light enough to see things clearly, and were blown away by the beauty of it all. We’d seen Spruce Flats Falls (the falls there behind the Tremont Education Center) frozen once before, quite some time ago, and it was just as spectacular as I’d remembered. So neat! After it got dark I lit the falls using these small lights I have and then noted the orientation of the sky (which had to be shot separately since the forest is so thick back there), which I added all back together in post.
More next week!
–Dan Thompson