I’ve been interested lately in exploring new trails in the nearby mountains. It’s not always easy and convenient to plan the epic excursions to see the grand landscapes. I’m finding there are still dozens of trails leading out of Utah Valley that I haven’t taken the opportunity to explore. I always like seeing a good waterfall. Already this summer, I’ve hiked to a handful of waterfalls and cascades that have eluded me for the 40 years I’ve been in the area. Several weeks ago, I came across a description of one such waterfall called Horsetail Falls. This waterfall lies north of the Mount Timpanogos region, draining from an area in the Lone Peak Wilderness. The trailhead is above the town of Alpine, Utah. It was a steep climb, gaining almost 1600 ft in just two miles. There were a few other hikers along the way, but much of the time I enjoyed the solitude of this hike by myself. I began hiking at 4:30 in the afternoon, hoping to find the waterfall in shade. The trail heads up the southwest facing slope so much of the ascent was in full sun. When I started hiking it was in the low 80° so it was a hot and sweaty climb with a heavy backpack. Some months back I wrote about purchasing a lighter camera system to facilitate these mountain hikes and saving my aging back. Not only am I still carrying my old gear, but I’ve added additional equipment to my kit that only makes my pack heavier. I enjoy the control I get from my Nikon setup. I don’t regret purchasing the Olympus and I get great photos from it. I simply prefer the full-size camera body and all the accessories that come with the Nikon. My latest expansion of photographic gear is a better filter system. I’ve purchased a Lee foundation holder, a set of hard edge graduated ND’s, a set of soft edge graduated ND’s, a 10-stop ND, and a new polarizer. Before the year is out I plan to pick up several more ND filters to complete the set. I find I have greater control for managing the light by using these filters. A lot of the dynamic range problems can be managed in Photoshop and Lightroom, but if I make some attempt to correct for it in camera, I have much less work to do on the computer. But anyway, the bottom line is my backpack is only getting heavier. To counter the weight gain, I’ve taken several items out of my pack that I’m beginning to miss. One particular item I miss is my water filter. After spending an hour at Horsetail Falls photographing the cascades, I wanted to drink some of the ice-cold mountain water. While I could get away with that 30-40 years ago, I wouldn’t do that today without filtering it first. Another item to add back to my pack is my first-aid kit. I could tell on the way down the mountain that my muscles were getting sore and I would have benefitted from some acetaminophen. It was all good in the end though. I had a wonderful afternoon hike to a spectacular waterfall and enjoyed an hour practicing my photographic skills.

I rarely do selfies when I am engaged in capturing the landscape. In this case, I wanted to capture the scale of the waterfall. The only thing I had with me to give it proper perspective and scale was myself.

It isn’t often that I photograph moving water with a shutter speed that freezes the motion of the water. I much prefer to capture the silky quality that implies motion. In most of the images I made Friday, I shot in the range of 1/5 second.