Punch Bowl Falls

Author's Comments

The approach is half the experience. Eagle Creek does not just lead you to the falls, it carries you through a corridor of moss and basalt and narrow ledge that feels older than the trail cut into it. By the time you reach the punch bowl itself, you have already been inside the photograph for an hour. The falls drop thirty-five feet into a pool that holds its color in a way I have never quite gotten used to. Turquoise is the word everyone uses and turquoise is approximately right, but the green underneath the blue is what makes it strange. The basalt walls close around the pool like a room, and the moss runs down them in long vertical sheets that stay wet through the dry months. Late spring is when I prefer it. May into early June, when the snowmelt is still feeding the creek and the canyon walls are at their greenest. Morning light, before the sun reaches into the bowl directly. You want the diffused condition, the soft top light that lets the pool keep its color and the moss keep its depth. Direct sun flattens everything here. A long exposure is the obvious move and it is obvious for a reason. The water comes through hard enough that even a half second softens it into something more like fabric than falling water. Bring a polarizer. The reflections off the wet basalt will eat your shadows otherwise. This is a popular trail and you will not have it to yourself. Start early. The first light into the canyon is also the first hour before the day hikers arrive, and those two facts are not unrelated.

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