In a previous post, I showed the waterfalls at Granite Falls, north of us.  At that time, the weather had been quite calm, and the falls were quite subdued.  At that time, I had suggested I would go back later in the winter.  We had a prolonged period of rain in the area, some of which was very heavy.  Knowing this had come through, I figured a return trip was in order to see just how much the falls would be transformed.  This was not a wasted effort!

Even as I got out of the car in the parking area up on the main road, I could hear the falls.  The flow through them was unrecognizable from my previous time there.  The water was the full width of the falls and was crashing across everything in its path.  The force of the water was quite intimidating and, while I was quite safe where I was on the walkways, I shuddered to think what would happen to anyone getting caught up in this torrent.

Video was clearly the thing to experiment with on this visit.  Sure, I was getting lots of shots.  I was seeing whether longer shutter speeds would give a good impression of the motion or whether a slightly shorter exposure might actually be more effective.  However, video is the tool that really allows someone to appreciate the intensity of the flow and the noise.  Consequently, I edited together the footage below to give you an idea of what it was like.

As I looked upriver, I saw vehicles crossing the river and realized that the road I had come in on, continued across the river on a bridge.  I had not noticed this on the previous visit so, once I had made my way back up to the road, I decided to check the bridge out.  This is a country road so I wondered if there would be a safe way to walk across.  Fortunately, there was a protected sidewalk on both sides of the bridge.  It was quite a drop down to the river but the mist over the water and between the trees provided a lovely shot, so I was glad to have diverted that way even if I was a little uncomfortable that high up!