Tag Archives: Ohiopyle

Nature

Waterfalls of Ohiopyle State Park

Anyone that has viewed my website more than once probably knows that I often hike around Ohiopyle State Park and post pictures from there.  Today will be no different as a buddy and I hiked a bit over 8 miles around the park and tried to view most of the waterfalls in the area.  It has been a rainy week or so and we were hoping that the water levels would be higher than normal, and it appears we were correct.

We started out at the Jonathan Run trailhead and made our way to our first stop, the upper falls of Jonathan Run.  Normally I don’t see much water going over them, so I was a bit surprised at the amount going over today.  After we grabbed some shots there, we made our way down to the lower Jonathan Run falls.  It’s always a steep climb up and down to reach them, but it’s worth it if the water is flowing.

At this point, I wanted to make our way to cascades so we made our way back to our vehicles, dropped one off at Cucumber Falls parking lot and drove to the upper lot at the trailhead for the Cascade’s waterfall trail.  Our first stop after the hike downhill were the Cascade waterfalls.  There was much more water going over than I’d ever seen it, so some of my usual spots to cross to the other side were blocked.  We started to get some pictures at the upper end of the falls and then worked our way down to the base.

Once we were happy that we captured everything we could, we moved on down the trail past Flat Rock and stopped to take a look over the cliff edge on the Yellow Trail between Flat Rock and the waterslides.  We found a way down to the base of the cliff and stopped for some more pictures.  This was a small waterfall that I hadn’t noticed before.

We eventually ended up at Cucumber Falls.  It is very difficult to get a new and interesting shot of these falls that hasn’t been done a hundred times over, but it’s always a fun challenge.  Right as we were about to pack up, we noticed a rather large spider sitting on a rock very near to us.  I quickly threw on a telephoto lens with a macro adapter on the front, grabbed a TTL cord and a flash and got as close as I could, about 5″ from the spider.  I was sure he was going to attack…

Sports

Focusing on the details

It’s the beginning of July and the temperature was hovering around 100 degrees today.  Leaving the centrally air conditioned house is getting tougher, as a wall of moist heat slams into you as you step out the front door.  I didn’t let this deter me from heading up to Ohiopyle to get some mountain biking and photography in.  The biking went as well as can be expected since it was my first time on the mountain this year.  I did some new trails, had a blast and didn’t seriously injure myself, so that’s a win.

Finishing that, I decided to hike around Ohiopyle and see if any shots jumped out to me.  Since it was midday at this point, the light was rather harsh and the humid air was hazing everything up.  So I decided to forgo the landscape type shot and focus on some details.  Namely, a group of kayakers going over the main falls.  I tried to really zoom in and freeze the action.  Here are some of my favorites.

Ohiopyle is such a fun place to visit, you just never know what you might see.

Animals, Gear, Nature

A morning hike

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Early this morning I grabbed the camera gear and made the drive over to Ohiopyle state park for another of my half day hikes.  I was packing the E-M5 with a 12-50mm, 45-200m, 14mm, 20mm and 45mm.  For some extra light I brought along my newly acquired FL-300R and to block light I had an ND filter and a circular polarizer.  All of this went into the Domke F-5XB.   My Benro Travel Angel tripod went into it’s own bag slung over my shoulder.  Why am I telling you all about the gear I packed you ask?  Simply because I only used a single lens, the 12-50mm kit zoom.  Put the pitchforks away, I wanted to put it through its paces and see what it was capable of. The primes were for backup and the long telephoto was in case I saw some animals.  I learned a bit about this setup and definitely will make some changes next time I head out.  For now though, here are some pictures!

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