North Cheyenne Cañon Park

Author's Comments

The canyon does something to light that flat ground cannot. By the time the sun has cleared the ridgeline above Colorado Springs and found its way down into North Cheyenne, it has already been filtered, bounced, and softened by granite walls that rise close enough on either side to feel like they are listening. This is a narrow place. That narrowness is the entire point. I have come to prefer overcast mornings here. Helen Hunt Falls is the obvious subject, thirty-five feet of water tumbling against dark wet stone, and on a bright day the contrast is brutal in a way no exposure can fully solve. Cloud cover evens everything out. The greens of the Douglas fir go saturated, the granite goes from gray to something closer to blue, and the water can finally be photographed at the slow shutter speed it deserves. Silver Cascade is the longer walk and the better photograph, when it is running. A hundred and fifty feet of seasonal water threading down the rock face in late spring, when the snowmelt above is still feeding it. By August it is often a trickle. I have learned to come in May and early June and to accept that some years are more generous than others. The detail work in this canyon is what surprises most photographers. Wet moss on stone. The way a single shaft of light finds its way through the fir canopy and lands on running water. Park before nine, especially on weekends, and walk slowly. The canyon does not give up its best frames to anyone in a hurry.

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