The latest winter storm is now finished and we are now buried in snow. We are used to getting snow, but 20+ inches overnight is a bit excessive for us. I spent yesterday shoveling snow and then sled riding with the family, but today I left the house early and headed to my favorite spot, Ohiopyle State Park. Even though I go there quite often, things are always a bit different, especially with multiple feet of snow. My first spot was Cucumber Falls to try and get there before it got crowded.
Since this is one of my favorite places to hike around, I once again schlepped a camera and tripod around the State Park. The fall colors were fairly close to peak and I had no other times when I could get away, so I left the house before dawn and arrived just before sunrise. As much as sleeping in an extra hour would have been nice, good light simply doesn’t last all day.
While the past few weeks in south-west Pennsylvania has been quite frigid, today it warmed up just a bit and the sun made an appearance. This made for a nice hike around Ohiopyle. Having read that Cucumber Falls was totally frozen over, I decided to take a trip down to the Cascades as well as Jonathan Run Falls since I have never been to those in winter. Both of those were almost all iced up as well.
For this trip, I packed very light since I wanted to test out my new Fuji 18-135mm lens. I left my primes at home, which made for a compact and lightweight kit. Basically all I had was the X-T1, 18-135mm, Variable ND Filter, batteries, memory cards and my Benro Travel Angel tripod. Everything seemed to work great and even though the lighting was rather harsh (due to the time of day and a cloudless sky), the pictures were what I was hoping for. I am ready for it to warm up and for Spring to arrive.
