Magnificent Ice Falls
There’s a fascinating aura to winter waterfalls. All that liquid transformed into towering, hard, spectacular, white columns of ice.
So when the February forecast promised me a warmish sunny day, I set out eagerly for the western suburbs of Hamilton, Ontario.
Because it sits astride the Niagara Escarpment, the city has a reputation as the province’s waterfall capital.
I hope you’ll enjoy the trip with me. There will be three stops, starting with Albion Falls.
The Hamilton falls are not precisely wilderness sites. They’re surrounded by the busy roads of suburbia, and not far from the Red Hill Valley Parkway, the site of many environmental protests before it was built. Even in the midst of the forest I walked through, I could hear the incessant noise of car engines from every direction.
But, ignoring the din, and from a purely visual perspective, these falls were gorgeous.
At Albion Falls, the waters of Red Hill Creek cascade down for 19 metres, before meandering onwards, to Hamilton Harbour and Lake Ontario.
Here, seen from a distance, the ice has accumulated into curtains and a base framing the open water of the falls. It’s a creamy colour, contrasting with the cool white of the surrounding snow.
I’m struck by the way a river that’s flowing can remain free of ice, while the mist and tiny splashes immediately lose their heat in contact with the frigid air, and turn to ice. As night follows day, they evolve into a myriad of shapes – clouds, and puffs, and icicles, and some contours that are frankly indescribable.
Although there are visitor areas for all three falls I visited, the perspective they provide for ground-based photography is limited to a single viewing platform. To achieve a more dynamic view, I decided to fly the drone from a nearby parking lot.
I often fly the drone in a complex landscape of rocks, trees, and bushes, but it is pretty demanding.
My first move here was to elevate the drone high enough to travel safely over a line of trees, then carefully guide it over the valley.
The challenge here is that the further the drone travels away from the operator, the more difficult it is to figure out exactly where it’s located, relative to the landscape. The sides of the ravine were alive with bushes and branches. I had to make sure none of them would touch the drone, because with those frail propellers spinning at thousands of rpm, it would take only a moment to destroy them.
And if that happened, because the banks were high, steep, and slippery, it would be impossible to retrieve the drone’s body. (Even under ideal conditions, crashing is never a good option.)
While the drone does have an obstacle avoidance system that uses visual and infrared sensors in all directions (except up), it’s still possible to hit objects the system can’t detect. I’ve done it.
Fortunately, the main camera can function not only for photography but also navigation.
I followed a repeated routine. As the drone hovered motionless above the ravine, I set the camera to show the scene directly, horizontally, ahead of it. Then I slowly rotated the drone through 360 degrees, to assess where any danger might exist nearby but hidden from my eyes. If I saw risks, I re-positioned the drone.
Once I was satisfied, I pointed the camera straight down, to see if any obstacles lay directly below it. Only when I was satisfied the movement was safe, did I command the drone to descend.
Once I’d finished photographing Albion Falls, I set out on a snowy path through a small forest towards Buttermilk Falls. At first, the trail followed the edge of the Red Hill Creek valley, then it turned to follow a tributary which joins the Creek further downstream.
As I approached Buttermilk, I saw icy stalactites where water had seeped out of the rock face, hanging down into the valley and clinging to the rock.
Buttermilk Falls turned out to be even higher than Albion, at 23 metres, and featured a wall of ice broken by a trickle of open water.
I began by photographing the falls from high above.
Then, using the same precautions as before, I piloted the drone in close. Here, the water was running down the rock face, most of it concealed behind the icy wall, but I wanted to examine a gap in the ice.
Here you can see the bare wet rock. Above it, the ice has accumulated in vertical streaks caused by water sliding down the outer face of the ice. Below the break, in contrast, repeated showers and mist have evolved into icy pillows.
When I’d captured enough images, I tramped back through the woods, and drove to nearby Stoney Creek, home of Fesker’s Falls.
Standing on the Bruce Trail near the top of the falls, I saw another spot where water was escaping from the rocks of the escarpment, preserved in stalactites of ice that extended downward to form rounded white cushions.
The waterfall itself was just a metre shorter than Buttermilk Falls, descending in two beautiful cascades. Its icy curtain was unbroken, all the water flowing invisibly behind it.
By this point, the sun was getting lower in the sky and my energy level was subsiding with it. It was time to return home.
What I possessed on the drone’s SD card was raw material, almost 100 images.
Over the next few days, in the comfort of my office, I assessed them individually, and chose some for further attention. After many happy hours of editing, they were ready to share with you in this blog.
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