I had been looking forward to this trip all Summer since I first experienced this place earlier in the Spring…with a dead camera battery…. My girlfriend, Valorie, was heading back home to be with her family for the week, I had the chance to take a long weekend off work, the moon was going to be on the smaller phase of it’s cycle, and the Palouse region had forecast for mostly clear weather. The heavens were smiling on this opportunity, so I packed my car and rented some Nikon gear to try out and bring along (Nikon D3x, 14-28mm f/2.8).
It’s a six hour drive from Portland to the falls, but in regular Ben fashion, I took the most convoluted route possible and managed to stretch the six hours into a day and half by driving through, around, and in Central Oregon before cutting back up to SE Washington State. I text messaged my girlfriend pictures from my phone of the picture I had taken the night before while editing it in Lightroom 3. She argued it wasn’t fair I was visiting waterfalls at night while she was making dinner for her sisters. I would laugh and remind her there is nothing like family. Secretly, I was thinking to myself, “There’s nothing like a long weekend road trip to new places!!” I absolutely LOVE road trips to a new territory. You give me a full tank of gas, a car that runs, and a map- and I am as happy as a bear with a honey jar.
Eventually I made it to Palouse Falls, in Southeast Washington, around 8pm, missing a gorgeous sunset by about 15 minutes. My plan and intention was to get into the bottom of the bowl at the base of the falls and get a picture of the Milky Way arcing up and away from the lip of the waterfall. I was 65% sure it would work.
I scoped out the area in the fading dusk light, talked with a few photographers still lingering from the sunset, and then spread out my sleeping bag in the grass for a short nap until the sky darkened up and stars really came out.
Not wanting to pay a campsite fee for a short hour nap, I spread out my sleeping bag under a tree, in the back corner of the grassy picnic area, & tried to stay hidden from the camp supervisor on their evening walk. About 40 minutes into falling asleep, I woke up to whispers and flashlights dancing on the grass out in front of me. I quietly sat up to see what was going on. A group of kids (probably scouts from the camping area only 100 yards away) had snuck out to the picnic tables to stay up late talking and look at the stars. It was special to watch them enjoying the incredible display of stars that I was soon to attempt getting pictures of. Sometimes I worry I may get calloused in my wonder of the stars if I get lost in the technical ends of the photography and forget to just stop and enjoy the site myself. Watching the kids do what I’ve done so many nights myself when I was young was like being handed a cup of freshly brewed, piping hot inspiration. I didn’t want to freak them out as the homeless transient sleeping in the shadows, so I kept quiet and went back to sleep as they whispered and pointed at the stars for another hour. What these kids were experiencing is the heart intention of my star photography.
Eventually, the kids went back to their tents, and I woke up around 11pm feeling rested and alert, having shaken off the dust in my head from the long drive- ready to stay up the rest of the night to take pictures.
I had two plans for this photo excursion at Palouse Falls. I knew where I was going to end up at- in the bottom, in the bowl, looking up. But I wasn’t sure of the easiest/quickest way to do it. My options were:
1) Investigate the possibility and safety of repelling from the viewing platform down into the bowl.
2) Take a trail I had used before that goes upstream to get down to the river, and then follows parallel back downstream to the falls, and then there is a slight, narrow trail that traverses the bowl walls a couple hundred yards to a scree slide that can be managed down.
For protection of getting in trouble from this post- I will not get into details of option #1 other than saying, it is not safe and, in my opinion, should not be done.
But, it took me about 1 ½ hours to work through that choice, so with deep dark night time getting shorter, I switched gears and started the trail down into the bowl. The trail is nerve wracking in the day. Make it night; with no moon in the sky- and it get’s to be treacherous. I quickly covered the first half getting to the lip of the falls and inside edge of the bowl. It was incredible hearing the falls roar, and barely being able to see anything in the dark. My senses were on overdrive, and my heartbeat was thumping non-stop. Being on the edge of the falls, and the beginning of the sketchy traverse trail to go below, I had a decision point to make. Proceed or abort. Truth is, I really consider my options and situation at these points. If you’ve known me long, you know I have many stories of going to places that most people wouldn’t consider doing. That is true, but there are many stories that I never tell when I decided NOT to go further but rather chose the abort option. I honestly believe that I logically assess the risk of the excursions and adventures I go on. And even though I would have lost a six-hour drive and a lot of planning if I decided to abort, I was fully prepared to accept that and head back to the car.
All that to say, I stood at the beginning of the trail for a good 20 minutes debating whether I should go further. I had a detailed note/map explaining my route and planned destination under the windshield wiper of my car, and a time of day that I planned on being back to the car at the very latest. It’s a morbid feeling to leave a note explaining where the rangers should go look for my body if I didn’t return, but it was a reality, so I took care of that also.
Eventually, I decided to go on.
That trail scared the crap out of me. There are steep drop-offs, washed out sections, and the constant roar of the falls all around. It’s an incredible thing to be there inside at night. Heading down, the walls are always on your right side, and drop off is on your left side. Above me, over my right shoulder, the sheer jagged basalt walls raised about 70-100ft straight up. Down past my left ankle, the ground dropped steeply another 70 ft to boulders and frothy water below. Some spots the trail is comfortably two people wide, but others it narrows to 6” allowing only one foot to be placed. Shrubbery is mixed through most of it, so handholds can be found in branches and roots. But, the game of twister played to make it through the thicker branches adds to the challenge of the route. It’s only about 200 yards of actual traverse around the inside of the bowl, but it’s 200 yards of exact foot placement, and of constant concentration. About halfway through, I started getting distracted and mesmerized by the falls behind me, and of course the stars twinkling above. I took a bad step and my left foot slipped off a rock, and I began to fall. As I started to fall, my hands instinctively and frantically rushed out to grab something, and luckily, there was a rock hold nearby to regain my balance! Holding onto the rock and bringing my foot back to a solid spot- my breath was ragged and my heartbeat going crazy like a rave bass beat. I sat there petrified for a solid 10 minutes, getting myself back under control. I berated myself in my head for losing concentration and the almost-consequence of losing focus. I repeated about 30 times, “Pay attention. Every step counts. Survive this part to get to the goal.” I thought of the note for the rangers on my car windshield, ready to proclaim my stupidity, and find my body. With purpose and determination, I decided no ranger was going to get that note, because I would make no mistakes and be back to take it off the windshield before sunrise. Taking my time, and purposefully making each step, I slowly made progress around the circular bowl to the scree slide, finishing the scary traverse trail.
At the scree slide, there was a bag hanging 30 ft above me on the end of a rope with a blinking headlamp clipped to it. Earlier, when I gave up on repelling, I decided it would help to lower a bag full of extra gear to use via a rope tied off above. I clipped the blinking headlamp to it so I would see it when I came to it from the trail below. I did my best to get the bag down far into the bowl, but now I could see from below, that it had gotten hung up in a crag/crack 30 ft above the trail. It was odd and funny scene. I could have climbed up to get it, but the rock was crumbly, and everything in the bag was extra, not necessary, so again, with a risk/value consideration, I decided it wasn’t worth the risk and left it hanging there. Throughout the night I got a good chuckle to look up and against the dark, sheer walls and see the headlamp patiently blinking. Abandoning the bag to be retrieved from above later, I swept my headlamp down onto the scree slide before me, trying to see the safe way down I had used months before in the daytime.
While sweeping my light back and forth- I caught the reflection of glowing eyes in the head high vegetation down below at the base of the falls. Again, my heart stopped, and fast flashes of attacks by scary animals fluttered through my imagination. Regaining composure, I knew they were small deer, bedded down, wondering what this strange creature was that clumsily made it’s way to their direction. But, still, glowing eyes at night freak me out, and I never could quite relax as I continued to catch flashes of reflection of their eyes as I slowly picked my way down to the bottom. It always cracks me up (later) to see my fear rise when I come across animal life in the outdoors. I’m not sure when I’ll get over it. Finally, after about 2 ½ hrs from start to stop, I was at the base of the Palouse Waterfall, safely, looking up at one of the most incredible night scenes I’ve been privileged to experience.
The falls roared in front of me, surrounded by sheer, cliff rock walls, towering 150ft or more above me! The thick vegetation at the bottom swayed and shook in the wind generated by the crash of the water at the bottom. The spray coated my face, quickly turning into drops of water running down my skin. The heat I had built up on the climb down immediately disappeared and I began to shiver in the cold and wet wind. I stood immobilized looking up into the sparkling stars, brightly shining overhead. Incredibly, the Milky Way fell in line above the falls as I hoped! Behind me, the creek flowed down canyon, gurgling and popping in pools and swirls. The Big Dipper shown brightly behind me. And, again making me laugh, the blinking headlamp looked so small and far away hanging from the walls above. The safety of my car was only a half mile away from Point A to Point B, but in all reality, I was a hundred miles away, in another world more incredible than I imagined. After 10 minutes of staring immobilized, I snapped out of the trance with a wild “YYYEEAAAHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!” and quickly changed sweaty clothes for warm dry ones.
The remaining hours of darkness were spent tromping all over the bottom area, finding alignment for the falls and Milky Way and other compositions and exposures. It was awesome to be in that place under the stars. I knew that in only a few hours, scores of visitors to the park would be overhead, looking down into my wonderland, but for then, that time- it was mine. By 3:30am the deep dark began to trade for morning light. I packed up ¾ of my gear, but left the camera and tripod down below to take a star trail shot. It was a gamble leaving equipment below, but I figured as night faded to morning, going through the trail again was worth the effort for chance of an interesting single exposure star trail photo. And truth be told, I was high on the adventure and not ready for it to be over. I packed up, put the 2nd camera on a cable release and headed up and out. Along the way I took a few more shots from the trail, in between the top and bottom. Relief flooded me when I finally made it back to the car, and was immediately replaced by, “What the *#^$?!” as I knew I had to go back down for the camera and tripod. I debated leaving it till sunrise, to do the trail in safe light, but I didn’t want to waste the effort of having left the camera for the shot. So, I headed back down…again. The little bit of light helped tremendously to do the trail more safely, but ironically, the fear factor jumped 10x since now I could SEE how high I was, and how far the drop was. I thought it was scary the first time doing it in the unknown dark, but now, the unknown was revealed and the knowledge made it worse-not better!
The story ends happily, since I am hear typing this. I made it out, there was another misstep and almost fall, but again, luckily, there was a handhold to grab. With difficulty and effort, I was able to pull the gear bag back up to the top. The headlamp was busted up a bit, but still blinking. By 4.50am I got back to the car with all my gear and safely retrieved the note under my windshield wiper.
My night at the base of the Palouse Falls is something I’ll never forget.
-Ben
