Blackwater Falls State Park

Author's Comments

The color of the water is the first thing. Not brown exactly, not amber exactly, something between the two that belongs to its own category. Tannins from the hemlock roots above leach into the river over miles before it reaches the ledge, and by the time it falls it has taken on a quality that makes the foam look almost white by contrast. The canyon holds mist in the morning even when the sky above is clear, and in early October the red spruce and hemlock frame the surrounding maples and birches in dark green while they burn. I have been to louder falls and taller falls and falls more celebrated in guidebooks. Blackwater persuades through mood rather than spectacle. The canyon is narrow and deep and the sound is total. The main overlook gives you the side light you want in the first hour after sunrise, the falls reading against shadow on the far wall. That is a photograph worth making and most people make it and leave. The Gentle Trail winds down into the canyon and that is where I spent the rest of the morning, closer to the water, losing the full drop but gaining the texture of the dark river itself, the way it moves through the boulders below. The light is different down there. Softer, more diffuse. The canyon walls do something to it. Come in the first week of October. The elevation here is high enough that the color arrives before anywhere else in the mid-Atlantic, and you will have beaten the crowds by a reliable two weeks.

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