Dark Hollow Falls

Author's Comments

The trail down is short and the trail back up is not. That is the one piece of information I wish someone had given me the first time. Seven tenths of a mile of consistent descent through hemlocks, and then the falls appear in stages - not a single drop but a long stepped cascade over dark rhyolite, tumbling in tiers you can work individually or try to catch in one wider frame. I prefer the smaller compositions. The full falls are hard to photograph honestly because the hollow is narrow and the light is uneven, but a single tier with water breaking white over that rust-dark rock is a photograph that almost makes itself. A half second on the shutter is enough. Longer and you lose the texture. Go on a weekday morning in May, when the hemlocks are still holding their own against the hemlock woolly adelgid and the understory is green and damp. The light down in the hollow is soft all day, which is part of why the timing matters less here than at other places in the park. What matters is the crowd. By ten in the morning on a weekend this trail is a line of people, and the falls are not large enough to absorb that many visitors gracefully. Come early. Come alone if you can. Let the sound of the water be the loudest thing.

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