Eagle Creek to Tunnel Falls

People on either side of the man-made tunnel in Tunnel Falls

A few days ago I did the longest hike I'd ever undertaken in the Columbia River Gorge: the 12-mile round trip Eagle Creek trail leading to 120-foot Tunnel Falls. This is one waterfall I didn't expect to be able to see simply because the hike is too long for me to be able to convince someone to go, but Jay, the guitarist from our band One Moment, was willing to take me there and brave the distance. Here's some photo documentation of the all-day escapade!

Eagle Creek at a bridge about 3.7 miles along the trail

Eagle Creek about 5 miles in. The creek is almost always seen from high above, from anywhere between 100 and 150 feet. The telephoto lens came in handy for this shot.

Tunnel Falls, one of the only shots my non-wide-angle lens could get of the whole thing. It both free falls and slides along a slanting cliff, looking almost like a water slide. You can see where the trail continues in the indentation in the rocks on the right.

Tunnel Falls as seen from the trail, flower level.

Tunnel Falls from the base again, one of the only shots form this angle I got without having any mist on my lens.

Just beyond Tunnel Falls is this waterfall, named "Twisty Falls" on Wikipedia and "Unnamed Falls" by Jay, who I trust more on this issue (the source Wikipedia cites admits that "Twisty Falls" is the unoficial name of the waterfall). Whatever its name, this waterfall actually has a second tier below this one of about a hundred feet, which could be seen from a slightly scary part of the trail where there was no clear or safe view for photos.

Above Unnamed Falls. If it had been darker, I could have made a spiral at the base of the cascade. It's a new photo technique I've been working on. Almost there!

On the way back I noticed Tenas Falls from the trail, a double falls from a side creek (also unofficially named). It's 25 feet tall.

The Tenas Falls shots came out wonderfully!

The Eagle Creek trail leads past Punchbowl Falls, a very famous and picturesque 30-footer. I didn't get to the angle that's so well-known, though. I've already seen it from that perspective.

Ben Mayer Goes To Portland Part II

With Ben's final day in Portland we returned to the Columbia River Gorge, this time to Eagle Creek. This time I only had my 55-200mm lens, usually reserved for bird-watching. Not usually the best for landscape or waterfall photography, but I had to make do. But there were certainly perks. Snow on the ground being one of them, the incredible blueness of the river being another, along with its huge swelling flow, so big that the popular view of Punch Bowl Falls was completely covered by the fast-moving river. And as a final bonus I got to see easily missed Metlako Falls (as shown above) and sexy Loowit Falls.

Punch Bowl Falls as seen from above. I took this shot with the lens that no longer works. As you see, it does indeed generate photographs with recognizable content. However, the colors are duller and darker. I must fix it.

Impact! Eagle Creek hammers into a rock.

A side stream makes its way to Eagle Creek. This time of year, with all the snow melt, the canyon walls practically oozed streams like this one, complete with a host of seasonal cascades and waterfalls. Gorgeous!

A surfable rapid in Eagle Creek

The top of Lower Punch Bowl Falls, which boomed impressively... not the small falls I jumped off in the summer!

Sexy Loowit Falls has that seductive curve at the base. I'm not sure how tall the falls truly is - I've heard 60 and 100 feet... very different figures, but I'd err towards the 100 side - but it sure it elegant. Between the swirling pool and the voluptuous twist at the bottom... what a model!

This is the last photo I took with my broken 18-55mm.

Snow covered the hills as we walked by. It made a better picture in my mind than in reality. As was many pictures of the day with the lens I wasn't used to.

Eagle Creek

Loowit Falls as seen from later on the trail.

Loowit Falls meets up with Upper Punch Bowl Falls. They both fall into the same pool. Rats. I guess this means Loowit's already taken.

Metlako Falls is 100 feet tall and can only be seen downriver from a lookout ridge. This is the only view you get. But to get there you have to follow a trail that looks like it's leading you amiss - it's not marked until you get there for some reason. Anyway, here it tumbles into Eagle Creak, making its own cloud of mist above. We could see the cloud of mist for about a quarter of a mile before we reached the waterfall. Beautiful.

Punchbowl Falls

Back to the Columbia River Gorge! This time to the famous Punchbowl falls, a serene 30-foot drop over what looks to be the lips of a cup and pouring gracefully into a calm circular pool of green water - or at least that's the impression I got from the pictures online.

Me swimming at the base of Punchbowl Falls (photo by Courtney)

In fact I found the falls to be less peaceful than Google Images had led me to believe. As I've mentioned before, waterfall photography tells lies through high shutter speed to remove movement speed from waterfalls and add silky body; looking at a picture like the first on this post one would expect the falls to sound like a loud trickle with the light sprinkles of a fountain. This was not the case with Punchbowl Falls - this waterfall roared. There was nothing gentle in its plunge, both because of the high volume of water jumping over the ledge each second and because the basin it fell into amplified the sound.

I felt it to be a working class waterfall, diligently throwing water below without much concern for visual beauty or grace. There are only a couple places where one can photograph Punchbowl Falls and I felt like it struggled against my efforts to find new ways to capture it with the camera, as if it were aching to go back to work and my enjoyment was preventing that. It was a hardworking waterfall. Courtney, on the other hand, thought it was nurturing - the cove carved out at the base of the falls was so secluded that she felt like the waterfall was wrapping around her in an embrace (my words, not hers). I bet we're each right.

Punchbowl Falls helped me to realized a very important aspect of Columbia River Gorge waterfalls: the color. The Gorge's lush greenness provides a real challenge when I think about photographing waterfalls there: How can I encapsulate how vibrant the waterfall's environment is without sacrificing the grandeur of the waterfall itself? In my pictures I like the waterfall to be central to the photo's composition, unlike in this excellent photo blog where the waterfalls are usually seen as a part of the background or a larger landscape. I've usually used shapes to bring out the waterfall in composition, but in the Columbia River Gorge color is an effective method as well, and the two can compliment each other.

For example, compare the two pictures above; they're actually the same exact shot, just copied and put into black and white. The photo works well in black and white, but it loses the deep green grass above the top of the falls. In the black and white photo the eye naturally drifts down with the path of the waterfall, but in the color photo the eye stays towards the top of the falls, attracted to the green. Personally I find the color picture more exciting because the geometry of the falls' top more interesting than its base.

However, in the three pictures below, I am most drawn to the sepia because it draws emphasis away from the green-leaved tree and back towards the waterfall, moving your eye in the shape of an L along the river without pulling it back up the tree as strongly. The black and white photo has a similar effect although I personally feel it weakens the definition.







The final note about Punchbowl Falls: its swimability. The water is from snow melt so it was fairly cold, even in the heat of late August. Still, I swam out to the base of the waterfall, plus I jumped off the top of the shorter Lower Punchbowl Falls (all photos by Courtney):