Part 4 – Waterfalls of Olympic National Park

In the last blog, I talked about the morning and evening of day one in Olympic National Park. This installment, we will be exploring some of the waterfalls in the National Park. Starting with Madison Falls.

Madison Falls

After arriving in the small parking lot for multiple trailheads Shelley and I walked a winding trail that leads back to Madison Falls. Madison is the most easily accessible of the waterfalls in Olympic National Park. There were beams of light coming through the tree canopy hitting the falls at a beautiful angle. With sunlight filtering through the trees in this fashion, I was able to find a composition of the Madison Falls that allowed me to slow the shutter of my camera to 10 seconds. By doing this, I was able to achieve a silky smooth flow to the waterfall and the stream flowing from its base.

Marymere Falls

After photographing Madison falls Shelley and I headed down the road to Marymere Falls. The hike back to Marymere Falls is longer and has more grade changes as well as steps leading to the viewpoint for the falls. Marymere has a much longer drop and is deeper in the forest canopy then Madison Falls. This, coupled with the fact that there were a lot more people attempting to walk on a much smaller trail, made photographing Marymere Falls from the trail more of a challenge. That being said, I was able to find a composition that I was happy with. The composition combined with the lighting allowed me to slow once again the shutter of my camera such that I was able to achieve a silky smooth flow of the water down the falls.

Sol Duc Falls

Shelley and I next drove to the parking lot for the trail to Sol Duc Falls. We arrived with more than enough time before sundown. We started the hike thinking we had enough time to make the round trip to the falls and capture a couple of compositions. The one thing that we had not taken into account was which side of the mountain we were on. Shelley and I made the hike out to the falls and started looking for the compositions that would work the best.

After finding a composition that worked for me, and while looking for additional compositions of which there are a few, I noticed that it was getting dark; not a little bit but very dark. This was in part due to being behind the mountain and inside of the forest. So I donned my head torch. And we packed our camera gear away. Then Shelley and I headed back down the eight-tenths of a mile trail to the parking lot.