Mobile Menu
My friend Sean and I met in college when he moved into the house I was living in after another roommate fell through. A Corvallis local like me, it was a wonder we hadn't met earlier due to our shared interests and many mutual friends. We instantly clicked on how much we love the visual arts, and have spent the past few years working together on a number of projects and adventures. The first person I call when I'm planning a new trip in the area is Sean. We work well together, and always have a fantastic conversation about whatever is going on in the world while we're at it.
Post-grad life is weird. We both ended up in jobs that we weren't too crazy about, and have both been struggling to find time to dedicate to our creative outlets. So when we figured out schedules that gave us both Thursdays off, we decided to take that one day a week to be productive together and create whatever we could come up with in a day trip each week. In this case, Sean had previously been to a pair of waterfalls that was a short drive away from our hometown, and we decided to hop in the car and see what they looked like in winter weather.
Let me preface this by saying that we were enormously unprepared for what lay ahead. We took Sean's old Subaru knowing that there had been snow and ice storms in the area previously, and we wanted to have something dependable in case anything went wrong. We had chains loaded up, bought some snacks for the road, and were off to find a way to get to these waterfalls without sliding off the road in the process.
The first route we took ended up being completely obliterated by a few feet of snow, on top of a layer of ice that made the road impassable. It took several tries to get the chains right, and even then the snow was just too deep for our car to make it up the steep road to the falls that he had taken before.
So we set out for the coast instead, figuring that we were halfway there anyway, and worst case scenario would be we caught a nice sunset and headed home. Luckily, though we had dismissed the waterfall trail already, we found another route of back roads on the other side of the coastal mountains that led us there with only a few minor hiccups and a couple of scary sliding instances. We laughed about it then, but were both slightly shaken by just how easy it could have been for us to have crashed on the road and been stranded. We made sure to chain up the tires before we set off on the hike, just to insure that we would be able to get back out if we didn't return to the car before dark.
The hike was relatively short, through a series of beautiful snow-covered trees and little creeks that opened up into an incredible gorge where two enormous waterfalls poured over the edges at the west end. We rounded a bend in the trail and were met with an incredible sight - a natural window through the forest with a perfect view of the larger waterfall.
With daylight starting to fade, we had to be quick about shooting. Sean mainly shoots video, so he scrambled down over the rocks surrounding the base of the falls, getting his angles just right. I shot a lot of wide landscape photos, trying to capture the magnitude of the scenery we were experiencing.
Once the sun broke through the trees above the falls we were stunned by the colors of the valley floor. Snow really does add a mystical feeling to any landscape, and this was no exception. I'm so thankful that I live in a place where these kinds of things exist, and that we were able to find a (relatively) safe path there.
We returned to the car just as golden hour was setting in. Since we were nearly to Pacific City, we decided to venture onward to Cape Kiwanda for sunset, and hopefully catch it before dark.
Racing light is always a rush. We got to Pacific City just as the sun was dipping below the horizon on the water. We had just enough time to shoot for a few minutes on the beach before it was too dark and too cold to possibly do more. We joked about how we needed to buy gloves for future outings, as holding a camera in freezing temperatures really starts to wear on your hands if they're exposed.
Pacific City is gorgeous, and a place I'm never disappointed to end up. We ended the day with burritos and good music, great conversation and some plans for the weeks ahead. All in all a successful day, even with the near-death experiences and frozen appendages.
