[joker]

Facebook got me curious about whether there might be some good photo ops at Franklin Falls. Duly warned about the road's being closed very close to the highway exit, I expected a long but relatively flat walk, and knew the "ocean" (i.e mostly high frequency highway noise) would be my companion for much of the walk. But so would the snowy woods and creek... On this mid-week afternoon, there were maybe "only" about 20 cars parked at the start. Met most of their occupants coming out as I walked in, a proud member of the late shift. It was fun wandering around and trying to find good views that would capture the feeling of the walls of ice and perhaps the falls. After much time experimenting with other views and generally "working the shot" as they say, I decided that a straight on view, fairly cropped, best distilled what interested me visually.

Franklin-Falls

Franklin-Falls-2

As darkness approached, I packed up and got down the trail portion to the road by the campground before full darkness. I enjoyed a progressively darker and rather desolate (save for the masses of people hurtling by far above) walk through winter back to my car, perhaps a bit more tuned in than normal to the noises of animals or chunks of snow falling from tree boughs. All in all a nice afternoon venture, leaving home after lunch and getting home by dinner, with what I estimate to be a nice mellow 7 mile walk with a winter pack and camera gear.

[Bernardo]

Nice shots. I would be interested to see what the bigger picture looks like if you have any shots showing more of the area even if they are less artistic. It was pretty cold out there today!

[joker]

Thanks! As for the color and detail, I followed the classic "ETTR" (expose to the right) advice which left me with a very white viewfinder in the field! But the histogram showed nothing clipped on the right, and it all came back nicely when processed to a more realistic exposure. The late afternoon light, on a day with clouds but some blue sky and sun on some nearby hillsides, helped a lot on the detail. Nice soft but directional light. It was part of why I decided to drive up and try for some photos on Thursday. Bernardo - I have one or two wider shots, but nothing that took in the whole scene (indeed I was more looking for aesthetically pleasing shots than anything terribly documentary). A search on "Franklin Falls" on Facebook brings up some fairly recent wide whole-scene shots, though I see none with the "hood" over the top of the falls as seen in these photos from Thursday, after days of deep east-flow cold at the pass. I'll hopefully manage to post a few of my medium wide shots in the next couple of days.

[nordique]

From the Seattle Times, a wider view: http://www.seattletimes.com/photo-video/check-out-the-epic-icicles-at-franklin-falls-off-i-90/

[uww]

[christensent]

[joker]

I don't recall the precise language on the barricades, but my recollection is that it was very much a "closure" despite the road's still being fairly well plowed when I was there. There was also a FS truck patrolling the road - it was coming out while I hiked in. I don't know anything more other than that in the few weeks prior, there had been many reports of the road being a major circus of cars getting stuck on the side and needing tows, traffic blocked in both directions for long periods by the resulting shenanigans, and so forth. So perhaps the FS has decided that the road is too much of an attractive nuisance for the average drivers who make their way up there to see what the newspaper, TV stations, and facebook posts of the ice are all about.