Proxy Falls

Author's Comments

The road to get here is closed half the year, and that fact shapes everything about Proxy Falls. Highway 242 opens late, sometimes not until July, and by mid October the gate is locked again. What you get is a narrow window when the forest is at its fullest and the falls are running on snowmelt that has already done most of its work upstream. The upper falls is the one that stops you. Two hundred and twenty six feet of water spreading across a cliff face so thoroughly mossed over that the rock itself reads green. The water does not so much fall as drape. In morning light, before the sun clears the ridge, the whole face holds an even, shadowless luminescence that is almost impossible to overexpose. This is long exposure country. A second or two is usually enough. Any longer and you lose the structure of the fan. The lower falls is stranger and gets less attention. The water drops sixty four feet into a pool that has no visible outlet because the lava bed underneath is porous and simply drinks it. The creek disappears. I find this more interesting to photograph than to describe, and I am still working out how to make an image that conveys it. Come in September if you can. The crowds thin after Labor Day, the alders along the trail begin to turn, and the morning light gets that low autumn angle that the summer overhead sun never offers. Wear boots that can handle mud and uneven lava rock. Move slowly. The loop is short enough that you can walk it twice and probably should.

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