Archangel Glow

I walked straight past these on the way in. We’d started early and I was worried the Subway would be full of people by the time we got up there, so I put my head down and kept going, shot the Crack, shot the Subway, and picked the cascades up on the way back down when there was no longer any hurry.

My boots were already soaked by then, so getting into the creek to line this up cost me nothing. The water here spreads out across wide, shallow terraces instead of cutting down through a channel, and standing in the middle of it was the only way to get the angle I wanted on the tiers. What I like most is the depth — you can follow the water back and up to the curving canyon wall behind it, which puts the whole scale of the place into a frame that’s mostly about a foot of moving water.

We could not have timed the colour better. It was October, the maples and cottonwoods had turned, and fallen gold leaves were being dragged across the terraces by the current the entire time I was set up.

I paid for the wet boots on the walk out with a blister or two, which I’d take again.