The Virginia Cascades at -3°
First, let me tell you this; After having lived in the southeast for a couple years I have basically become a sissy to the cold. It seemed like it was nothing back in Montana when the mercury dropped below zero. Now, anything under 20° makes me have to REALLY motivate myself to get outside!
This morning when I woke up I knew I was in for a miserable few hours getting used to the frigid temps that have come into the area. But, this kind of weather doesn't come around very often so I figured I might as well go and enjoy it!
The crappy thing about starting out a hike in the cold is my nose's initial response! Once I get moving I am A-OK, but then I build up a sweat, my glasses fog up, and life starts to suck again.
Luckily the hike to the Cascades is only 2 miles one way. I opted for the less scenic upper trail, to get me there faster.
I got to the falls right about 7AM,
I was ABSOLUTELY STOKED to see all that ice! It sure makes for quite the foreground. The only issue with waterfall shots and specifically frozen waterfall shots is the spray. It's not just normal spray that you can wipe off, it freezes! As the temp of your camera lens drops, the more and more frozen spray you get. I had some lens cleaning wipes that would get me just clean enough and buy me enough time to dry off the lens.
After screwing around a little on the 'left' hand side of the creek. I decided to try and cross up to the right to get a shot of the sunlight hitting the ice on the far side. The only problem is, when crossing, I grabbed some slush that I thought was ice, soaking my gloves. The water didn't get down to the liners but almost instantly I had really hard frozen glove fingers to try and work through! And to cap it off, the sun hadn't yet risen high enough to light up the far side.
You can see the light starting to creep down, but by now I was shivering from head to toe! It was time for me to bail.
And a quick note... for those of you that are going to head up into the icy cold soon, remember this. If at anytime your tripod goes under the water, plan on using it like that for quite a while, because at temps this cold it essentially freezes on contact. One way I averted this from happening(for as long as I could) was to fully extend the lowest section of the tripod, and making most height adjustments by using the upper section. This way, you put as much room as possible between the water and your tripod levers.
Don't forget to wear a jacket! Thanks for reading.
