Snoqualmie Falls
May 8, 2007
There are two reasons I moved from Florida to Washington: Mt Rainier and this place!
This is a view of the falls from the visitors’ platform at the top of the falls. (You’ll see what I mean in a second.) There is a gift shop, parking lot, and picnic area nearby. I stop here for a look at the water level of the falls. On this day (5/8/07) it was a decent 4500 cubic ft per sec going over the rim. A little misty but no problems taking photos. It’s lowest in the summer, around 2000 cubic ft. And during spring snowmelts or winter rains, it can be full from rim to rim (10,000 cubic ft to 20,000+ cubic ft). My digital photos of such a time were lost to a hard drive crash in late Jan, so I’ll have to refer you to other’s photos (see link at bottom of posting) for now. But it is magnificent! The falls are thundering with the water pressure, the air is full of spray (very difficult to get any photos!), and it’s “raining” inside the platform. In about 10 secs my glasses are too wet for seeing. The area below the falls (where this tour will soon be going) is not suitable for human visitors. Unless you have a suicidal wish to be swept downstream. Fortunately, such occasions are not the norm and most of the year you can safely go to my favorite place to be—the bottom of the falls. Next! (And I forgot to mention–click to see larger image.)
Yep! Way down there! This is the view looking down from the platform to the river bed below. The height of the falls is 268 ft by the way, taller even than Niagara Falls (170 ft on the Canadian side). From the picnic area there is a moderately steep half-mile trail going down to the bottom. For a native of flat Florida however, it is a little more than moderately steep. So I cheat a little and take a short-cut (known mostly to the locals) down to the bottom. I prefer to spend my energy hopping around on the rocks, rather than huffing and puffing up and down the hillside trail.
(For a drawing of this area and more info about the falls, go to: http://www.images.beggerlybend.com/photos/snoqfalls/SnoqFallsInfo.html
At the bottom of the trail is an old (1910) power plant. It’s closed to the public and the main trail bypasses it (via a chain link fence tunnel). The trail becomes a wooden boardwalk leading to another viewing platform.
Whoops! This is a rear-view of the boardwalk. (Looking back toward the power plant.) The river is on your right as you move along the boardwalk. At the end of the boardwalk but still a distance (one-tenth of a mile?) from the bottom of the falls is a viewing platform. From there you go over the railing and down to the rocks. The way down is pretty obvious. And you can often watch someone else go first! The Falls is a very popular tourist destination (1.5 million people a year). Maybe about .5 of that 1.5 million go down to the rocks, so company is never far away.
This is a view looking back at the lower platform.
Looking towards the opposite side of the river. (Getting closer to the Falls!)
Ahh! Great view! Can you feel the mist?
One very interesting thing (among several about the falls), is that the rock walls surrounding the falls change color–drastically, depending upon the season and lighting. From dark brown, nearly black and grey-white, to a reddish-brown and red-yellow. I’ve seen photos that made me wonder if the photographer had “colorized” it—or used special lenses—because it was so different from what I saw with my naked eyes. But, while rock-hopping, I discovered that photographers weren’t faking it.
I think this is a hunk of rock from the walls, not a river rock. As you can tell, it’s quite colorful. I was tempted to take this one home, but it was too heavy. So I left it for others to admire as well.
Yeah. Bury me here when I die. (Don’t I wish! But it’s a park, so I’ll have to settle for having my ashes released into the water. Like the Buddhist monks—who sweep their sacred sand mandalas into vases after completing them and then pour the grains of sand into a local body of water as a blessing.)
How about 4:45 pm, on a summer’s day, when this begins to happen?
The rainbow will progress across the bottom of the falls. On occasion I have seen double rainbows, but the second one is usually too faint for the camera’s lens to capture.
Snoqualmie Falls is about a 40-minute drive from my house and I try to visit it several times a month during the year. There’s something about the rushing water that is both relaxing and energizing. It’s a special place for musing and writing. You can’t see from this photo—
but these boulders are huge (some are 8 to 10 ft in width and height) and hidden between them, near the green tree on the far right, nearest to the camera, is a large log. This area is shielded from the mist by the boulders and the log offers shade. That is where I write. When I’m not watching the falls or the rainbows.
For more views of the falls, go to www.snoqualmiefalls.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snoqualmie_Falls
http://www.vrseattle.com/pages/browse.php?cat_id=159 (Quicktime movies! Very cool. However, it is not current. All the logs visible in the videos have been swept away in recent floods. And, the videos were taken during the weekend when the place was quite crowded. I visit the falls only on the weekdays, in order to avoid such crowds.)
All photos above by Cheshire. c) 2007
