Blue Ridge Parkway: America’s Favorite Drive, Day 3
By: Will Hackman
Tags: Traveling, Travel, Hiking, Camping, Outdoors

At 4,090 ft, this is an excellent photo op for selfies and sweeping panoramic views looking toward Table Rock and Grandfather Mountain and across endless additional mountain ridgelines east toward the Linville Gorge Wilderness. More information about this spot can be found on the National Park Service’s website: here.

The shadows were getting long by the time I arrived around noon on this late fall day so try to get there earlier in the day for what is likely a breathtaking sunrise or just more direct light.

SIDE TRIP OPTION: Linville Gorge the “Grand Canyon of the East” and the Linville Gorge Wilderness

The Linville Gorge Wilderness Area within Pisgah National Forest is 12,000 acres and one of only two wilderness gorges in the Southern US. The river is 2,000 feet below the ridge so hiking along the rim offers amazing views down into the gorge.

What I think is the most incredible feature about this place, however, is that old growth forests span 10,000 of its acres. Most of the forests in the US were subject to industrial logging over centuries of development. Less than 4% of old growth forests remain in the US and a very small amount of that is on the East Coast (most of it is in the West and Alaska). It is likely that all of the forests you’ve ever taken a walk in are second growth that has been slowly growing back since being clear cut for farming or other industrial needs. It takes hundreds of years for old growth to truly return to an area and its importance to an ecosystem cannot be overstated.

Given its rugged terrain, it was deemed unprofitable to log in the Linville Gorge area and so untouched old growth forests of huge eastern hemlock and eastern white pine remain here as they did thousands of years ago! It is a remarkable example of what the entire mid-Atlantic Appalachian region once looked like.

I’ve written in previous posts about how incredible our National Wilderness system is. These are some of the most pristine natural habitats left in the US — special places where nature still calls the shots. In 1964, with the signing of the Wilderness Act, Linville Gorge became one of the original components of the National Wilderness system.

I stuck to my Blue Ridge route on this trip but there are excellent websites that describe the Grand Canyon of the East in great detail. Visit: Romantic Asheville, the US Forest Service, as well as AllTrails and others for hiking and camping suggestions.

Stop 3: Lunch at Little Switzerland and Emerald City

The OPPOSITE of wilderness, cruise south along the Blue Ridge Parkway another 14 miles and you’ll hit the peculiar but awesome area of Little Switzerland. This is an excellent place for lunch with a beautiful outdoor seating area out back and a firepit that looks across the mountains. The food is great. It’s also a resort if you’d prefer more accommodations during your travels.

For a family activity, a few miles off the Parkway from here is Emerald Village and the NC Museum of Mining. Emerald Village boasts on its website 12 historic real mines and gem buckets where you can collect and keep everything you find.

Stop 4: Crabtree Falls, Milepost 339.5

Back to the Parkway. In my previous post in this Blue Ridge Parkway series, I talked about Crabtree Falls, VIRGINIA — a massive waterfall a couple miles off the Parkway near milepost 27. Another 312 miles south along the Parkway, in North Carolina, there is another Crabtree Falls. This one is just as incredible, if not more so just for the kinds of photos you’re able to take:

Before I get into how I took this shot, IMPORTANT NOTE: Your GPS may take you all over the place if you simply put in “Crabtree Falls.” DO NOT LEAVE THE PARKWAY from Little Switzerland (unless you want to check out Emerald City). On the Parkway, continue south from Little Switzerland 8.5 miles and you’ll clearly see the parking area for Crabtree Falls.

The total hike loop isn’t long — I tracked 3.09 miles on Strava. The trail can get steep but I only tracked 609 ft of elevation gain. I recommend the loop as opposed to an out an back along the same trail. You’ll steeply descend to the falls and then, if you do the loop, will more gradually rise back to the parking area. Going down a steep trail is always easier than going back up one!

How to take that glassy water effect shot!

Now to the fun part. You’ll need an actual camera for this — sorry, iPhone has not yet figured out how to do this. I have a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ1000. It’s a few years old and is technically a “point and shoot” instead of a full DSLR, but I love it. I’m still mastering all of its capabilities which are more than enough for my purposes at this point and not having a true DSLR keeps me from having to lug a bunch of extra lenses around.

In order to capture the glass effect you need to have the right light. Low lighting is best — or a lens/filter that simulates it. What you’re doing is slowing down the shutter speed and allowing more light to come through to overexpose your photo. If it’s too bright outside, the photo will wash out and be bright white. Because of the slow shutter speed, you also have to be very careful not to shake the camera as it is much easier to blur your photo. Tripods work best. These are all the same principles as night photography.

When I arrived the base of the waterfall it was early afternoon and the shadows were thick, giving me the perfect lighting for this effect. I didn’t have a tripod with me so I balanced my camera on a rock to minimize shake. I switched my camera to manual mode and toggled my SS / F (shutter speed / aperture) slider. The F / aperture controls the brightness of your image. The higher the f-number, the smaller the aperture and the less light that passes through the lens; the lower the f-number, the larger the aperture and the more light that passes through the lens. (Thank you Nikon: source).

Every camera is different but as I adjust my shutter speed it automatically adjusts my ISO and tends to also adjust my f-number at the same time, although I can control both independently too. For these waterfall shots, I stayed around F-8.0, SS 10 (1/10 of a second), ISO 125. I also had some good ones at F-6.3, SS 15 (1/15 of a second), ISO 125. The longer your shutter is open (ie: lower SS number, until it starts counting up again in whole seconds), the smoother the water will be but the brighter the photo will also be so you have to strike the balance unless you wait until later in the day or night photography. For night shots, my camera goes all the way down to 60 seconds shutter speed and f-2.8, which has enabled me to take some incredible photos of the Northern Lights in the middle of the night. As I mentioned, there are also some filters you can screw onto your lens to help reduce the impact of the sun so you can take these long exposure shots even in the day time.

Going darker is always better in my opinion. If your photos turn out a little too dark, you can always brighten up the shadows or other features in easy to use editing tools built right into your phone, Instagram, or other software. But if they’re too bright and washed out, there’s not a lot you can do.

This is a highly shortened version of many complex photography principles. But hopefully it’s helpful to get you started and experimenting with some tactics that are sure to make your photos really pop!

For more tips check out my previous post on sunrise photography from the highest mountain in Shenandoah National Park! Check it out: here.

Stop 5: Mount Mitchell, Milepost 355.4

As always, this post is getting long but there are a couple more things I have to include — one of which is the tallest peak east of the Mississippi River! I swear I did all of this in just one day.