Prologue - My mind works in haphazard ways. Constantly jumping around between ideas and points of inspiration. There is a sense of order to it, at least, it all makes sense to me. My work may not outwardly reflect that chaotic order but behind the scenes, it’s everywhere. All of my photography trips start in a similar manner. I write down ~20 locations I want to shoot and then scrap half of them mid trip when I find better spots. It’s spontaneous, fun, but also stressful. I wouldn’t change how I attack each trip photographically for anything. But Autumn 2021 presented me with a new opportunity. I knew a return trip to Appalachia was in the cards since last year’s trip wasn’t as fulfilling as I had hoped. In an effort to keep everything fresh, I decided to change my approach. This time I plan to follow a singular road for the entirety of the trip. Blue Ridge Parkway. Yes, I will deviate from this course to find awesome places to photograph. The idea is to finish the entire drive without skipping a mile, even if the road is completed in segments.

Day 1 - Shenandoah National Park

While driving Blue Ridge Parkway is the main focus of this trip, I started in Shenandoah National Park. With the inflated temperatures of September, the color shifts didn’t happen as quickly as expected. Elevation helps but I still felt shortchanged on the first day. I spent the day exploring Dark Hollow and Rose River Falls. The twists and turns on the mini cascades at Dark Hollow Falls made for some spectacular scenes. Every rock and every cascade had it’s own characteristic, making it fun to compose an image combining them all. Fog completely submerged the mountains all day, making the drive back extra spooky. Just how it should be in October. Although the images from today weren’t as strong, I feel like I have a good enough start to build on and direct the rest of my trip.

Day 2 - Shenandoah National Park

The setback of slow changing leaves forced me to readjust my plan of attack for Day 2. While popular hikes like White Oak Canyon were on the cards, I opted to go waterfall chasing again. South River Falls provided me with some excellent views and a tricky river crossing below the falls. With an excess of rocks and fallen leaves, these falls stood up to my standards for a stunning long exposure shot. A large drop in addition to various roaring mini cascades below the falls made for some neat shots. After climbing all the way back up (yeah, that wasn’t fun), I headed south towards Doyle’s River Falls. A similar type of hike as South River Falls, Doyle’s River provided three waterfalls, each with a unique look and different stages of color change in the foliage. Undeniably worth the hike down (and back up), Upper Falls was the standout. Small but mighty, this double step falls looked awesome with the yellow tinted leaves that blocked the beams of light from pouring through the trees. This is one of those places I wish I had an extra hour. So calm, so quiet, and so beautiful.

Day 3 - Shenandoah to Roanoke (Blue Ridge)

Now I finally start my epic journey along Blue Ridge Parkway. My first stop was Crabtree Falls (lie, it was actually Starbucks, but I think that’s a given for long drives). As expected, hoardes of people were present to climb up to the top of the tallest waterfall east of the Mississippi River. The waterfall is stunning, a true natural beauty. Photographically… eh… I wasn’t blown away. Maybe my creative neurons just weren’t firing today but I snapped one good shot at the base and that was about it. There were some neat compositions but climbing onto slippery rocks and disregarding signage didn’t seem like a worthy risk. So I headed south. One of the neat things about Blue Ridge is that there are hundreds of overlooks and car turnouts. It was obligatory to stop and grab some shots throughout the day as I headed to Apple Orchard Falls. It’s easy to grasp why this road is so popular during Autumn. After moving South, I hit mile 78.4 and hiked on down to Apple Orchard Falls and what a beautiful waterfall. But again, not very photogenic. One of the standout features of these falls is the giant boulder that hangs in the middle of the drop. However, this makes the falls rather tricky to photograph but it’s still worth the hike. After making it back to my car, I headed off to Roanoke, but not before catching a neat sunset that lit up the sky orange and pink while silhouetting the mountains a nice tone of blue! Extremely picturesque and a definite highlight from Day 3.

Day 4 - Roanoke

Up until this point, this has been the best day on the entire trip. I started by heading off to the Cascades. Easily one of the top 5 waterfalls I’ve visited. The trail was nice, lots of nice rock formations that provided a number of awesome compositions. Orange and yellow leaves littered the foreground which doesn’t hurt the aesthetic of my shots one bit. For not originally being on my list of locations, this spot was a highlight. Unfortunate that I didn’t get to shoot it in better light, there are certainly a list of reasons to return. After spending arguably too much time shooting the Cascades, I headed off to Mcafee Knob. An exhausting hike but the views at the end made everything worth it. I waited a solid 5 months to catch an awesome sunset on camera and I couldn’t have been happier. Compositions are tricky at the top, however. With it being so popular, I struggled to find an angle that hasn’t been overdone. I think I succeeded but even if I didn’t in that regard, the shot looks stunning. Huge thanks to my new friends, Ethan and Scott, for letting me tag along on the return hike!

Day 5 - Roanoke

My final day in Roanoke was filled by chasing waterfalls. With Day 4, I hit the most popular spots in the area so I had less direction on Day 5. After looking at a couple of places across southwestern Virginia, I decided to venture north and check out Falling Spring Falls first. Known for being Thomas Jefferson’s favorite waterfall, Falling Spring Falls did not disappoint in the slightest. With plenty of water and an impressive drop framed by mountains in the background, I couldn’t ask for a better overlook shot. Unfortunately, hiking to the base of the falls is both illegal/highly discouraged and looked difficult, although not impossible. I’m almost certain the compositions from the base of the falls would have blown me away. Regardless of the difficulty, it’s important to respect nature and refrain from disturbing fragile habitat. Maybe another time. Next, I set off to the Roaring Run Loop Trail, which is home to numerous waterfalls and cascades. A crowded trail proved challenging for pulling off shots without people standing in the way. Nevertheless, I found these falls to be impressive despite the relatively small size. I don’t think I spent more time photographing a single trail/river on the entire trip up to this point. The varied rocks that are dispersed across the river added some nice accents and foregrounds to my images to spice things up. After finally calling it at Roaring Run, I headed off to try and find Mill Creek Falls outside of New Castle. This was a tricky one to find since there are multiple waterfalls in Virginia with the aforementioned name (according to my guidebook). Eventually, I did find it and was slightly disappointed. The lack of a foreground left me a little let down and I’m still debating whether the image I snagged is even worth keeping. Only time will tell.

Day 6 - Roanoke to Asheville (Blue Ridge)

Time to hit Blue Ridge Parkway again. This stretch was nearly 200 miles and it felt like so much more than that. First off, part of the road was closed so I was forced to take a much less scenic detour for a minute…well more like an hour. After eventually winding my way back to BRP, I headed off to find the extremely well-known Mabry Mill. This is one of those locations that I’ve had marked for years… and I was kind of let down. The foliage around the mill was minimal so any chance of an autumn themed image was thrown out the window. Given that I conveniently did this trip on a Sunday, the mill was packed. With people running all over the place, it was hard to get a clean shot. Even in such a gorgeous setting and a really neat subject, absurd amounts of people can still ruin a shoot. This would have been an amazing place to visit on a weekday. Onward. After stopping at a couple of waysides, I navigated south towards the Linn Cove Viaduct. Hands down, this is the most famous landmark on this road. Shockingly, there was nobody around! Just kidding, it was basically a sea of people. What’s most frustrating about places like this is that there is literally one shot. There’s no creative composition to come up with. I ended up cropping out the “S curve” that plays as a foreground for most people. I’m thrilled with the image in the end but I like lesser known places that allow for more creative approaches. My girlfriend brought up an interesting point that I’ll dive into more at the end of this post. She asked if we have reached the point that even nature is crowded. While Mabry Mill and Linn Cove Viaduct hardly qualify as “nature”, how many waterfalls have I visited that are packed with people? How many hiking trails have I traveled on that are so crowded I can’t go more than 10 minutes without having to step aside for someone? It’s an interesting thought that I have more notes on below.

Day 7 - Asheville and Finishing the entire Blue Ridge Parkway

With Asheville being my final stop, it was time to finish Blue Ridge Parkway in its entirety. 90-ish miles to cap off the nearly 500 miles of driving through the Appalachian mountains was all the stood in my way, and that last bit of driving was gorgeous to say the least. Layers upon layers of mountains in the distance with the leaves just starting to change colors was really something in the afternoon light. Unfortunately, this surreal feeling would come to a grinding halt as I attempted to photograph Mingo Falls. My tripod clamp failed and my camera fell into the river (update later in the post) because something always has to go wrong, am I right? Being so close to the end of my trip, I thought it was fair to just call it what it was and head home the next day.

Retrospective:

At the risk of being cliché, every adventure I embark on does teach me something. Sometimes I learn more about myself, sometimes its more about the business side of photography, and sometimes its just dumb stuff like don’t forget to bring a hat on the next road trip. I briefly mentioned this in the Day 6 segment but my biggest takeaway is more of a question. I was detailing my day to my girlfriend that night and she asked if we had seriously reached the point that even nature was becoming crowded. In short, it was easy to just tell her yes and move on with the conversation. Her question sat in my mind for a long time, though. Just eating away at my brain. There’s no question that humans have ruined this world. We’ve altered the environment to a point of no return. Regardless of that, I’ve still always found solace in the simplicity that is nature. I can leave all of my problems in the dust for a few hours. But that has changed. Trails are packed with people, some of whom have no regard for the delicate ecosystems they are in. Places like Gatlinburg, TN have commodified nature in a sickening way. I even find myself sometimes only going out to just get a photograph and not actually taking a breath and recognizing how spectacular the places I’m visiting really are. I feel bad about it, too. At the end of the day, if I get 1 photo or 50 photos, it doesn’t really matter. The earth still turns, I won’t die, but if I didn’t take a minute to breathe in the forest air, feel the water flow through my fingers, or feel the dirt under my feet. Why did I even bother going outside? I know I can and will appreciate what the natural world has to offer even more now.

**Camera Update - At the time of this posting, my Alpha A7Riii is being evaluated by Sony and my lens by Canon. I’m not too optimistic about being able to save either the lens or camera, but I will update this post once I know more!

Blue Ridge Parkway

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