(Water)Fall in the Northeast

It’s no secret that fall is the time of year I look forward to most for photography and this year was no exception.  I had to be in Denver for work during the third week in September so I planned my annual foliage hunting week off to occur just after that.  Not only did it turn out I was a week (if not more) early for peak color, but many of the places I visited had severe beetle kill all over the place, so I finished the week without much in the way of quality images to show for my time there.

Back at home in Connecticut, I really didn’t have any expectations for fall since I hadn’t scoped out any local spots.  One Saturday in mid-October, however, I woke up around 7:00 am to some thick fog and immediately got dressed and headed up to Enders Falls, about a 30-minute drive from where I live.  By the time I arrived, the fog had broken but there was still shade on the waterfalls and some soft light was filtering down through the yellow leaves.  The scene was pretty spectacular and it was enough to inspire me to look into other waterfalls to try to visit during what remained of the fall.

While doing my research, I somehow stumbled on a website that mentioned Ricketts Glen State Park in northeastern Pennsylvania. One trail with 24 named waterfalls?  It sounded too good to be true.  After returning from another work trip on October 19, I knew the upcoming weekend likely was my last opportunity to try to get some of the peak color at the falls, so I headed out to Wilkes-Barre that Friday evening despite being exhausted from the prior workweek.  I arrived at the park well before sunrise Saturday morning and had plenty of time to hike to the waterfalls and scope out some compositions.  There would be a window of only an hour or so after sunrise to shoot before the sun got too high and/or other people started to show up and climb all over the falls.  I managed to complete the whole loop, stopping at each waterfall, even if only for a few minutes.  There was such a variety in size and type and I easily could have spent an entire morning session at each one.

After this, I went back to my hotel to try to get a little more sleep but I was too wired from the morning so I got back up, ate an early lunch, and decided to explore some more falls in the area.  The website, PA Bucket List, turned out to be an invaluable tool to help me get the most out of my time in northeast Pennsylvania.  For the afternoon, I chose a hike along Heberly Run to visit four waterfalls:  Big Falls, Twin Falls, and Lewis Falls.  This felt like a true adventure, something that I’d expect out west, but not in the northeast so close to some pretty good-sized cities.  Much of the hiking was off-trail and sometimes even in the creek.  I spent about 5 hours there and didn’t see another hiker or photographer the entire time, which made it that much more awesome.  It was hard to believe I was only a 20-minute 6-mile drive from Ricketts Glen, which by that time would have been overrun with people.  On Sunday, I went back to Ricketts Glen pre-dawn to spend a bit more time at the cascades I had to speed by the prior day.  Since it was going to be cloudy, I had a bit more time to shoot before having to head home late-morning, so after Ricketts I visited Sullivan Falls, which was even closer than Heberly Run had been.  The weekend ended up being a perfect introduction to the “Waterfall Wonderland” of northeastern Pennsylvania.

I did additional waterfall exploring on subsequent weekends in October and November, including taking a day trip back to Pennsylvania to see Dry Run Falls, finding an unmarked Connecticut waterfall using topographic maps, and visiting a Connecticut waterfall in some woods right in the middle of a neighborhood.  You can see more of my waterfall images work from this fall in my Waterfalls gallery.