Smoke Hole Canyon

Author's Comments

The first time I drove through Smoke Hole I thought I had made a wrong turn somewhere. The road narrows, the cell signal drops, and then the canyon walls close in on both sides and the South Branch of the Potomac appears below you, moving slow and green between limestone that goes up several hundred feet in a single unbroken face. There is no town. There is barely a shoulder. It is the kind of place that feels like it should be better known and I am quietly glad that it is not. The name comes from the mist. On cool mornings in October, when the river is still warmer than the air, the canyon fills with a low vapor that moves like something breathing, and the cliffs above emerge from it in pieces. That is the photograph. You do not need to chase it. Route 28 runs the length of the canyon and there are pullouts every half mile, and if you start at first light and drive slowly you will find three or four compositions before the mist burns off. I bring a longer lens than I expect to use. The scale is hard to read in a wide frame, and the canyon rewards tighter crops - a single bend of river, a raptor on a cliff face, the layered recession of walls going back into haze. Spring works too, when the water runs higher and the new leaves come in against the gray stone, but fall is when this place earns its reputation. Bring water. Bring a full tank. You will want to linger longer than you planned.

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