Capturing the Art of Nature
Spencer Gorge (Day 4)
Spencer Gorge has been a favourite location of mine over the years. Today we decided to visit it again and enjoy the colours from the cliff face.
Category
Ontario Adventures
2014
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It looked to be another dull day with limited prospects for finding decent colour. So we really didn’t know what we should do to make the day effective for photography. We also had Mike’s son Luke with us and he wanted to do some hiking rather than just a lot of driving. Thinking of these constraints, I thought that Spencer’s Gorge would give us a nice hike and as the colours were strong, it may just be rich enough to enjoy in the dull overcast conditions. We all agreed to give it a try and so we first stopped for some coffee and a bit to eat for Mike who had not been able to get breakfast due to an early start on a project.
We made good time to the gorge and after paying for parking we started along the trail leading to Tews Falls. The colour was really very full and lovely and at the moment the light was quite bright for overcast. We enjoyed a nice walk through the trees along the edge of the gorge. We quickly noticed that they had improved the trail with a solid steel stairway that provided access over the steepest section of the trail. I’m sure it is well appreciated as the old path had some steep slippery sections to navigate.
The gorge was well used today with many groups making their way along the various paths and taking lots of photos. Camera gear ranged from the ubiquitous smart phone camera to very advanced DSLR gear like our own. People seemed very happy to be here and enjoying the lovely views of the lush colour in the valley below us. Our first photo stop was at the viewing platform for Tews Falls. It was crowded with people so we made our way down beside the platform where we could get a better view of the waterfall. Here I set up my tripod and gathered a few slow shutter photos of the falling water. The actual stream was quite light but still enough to give some nice photos.
After a good number of photos we moved on to the next higher platform and gathered a few more. This spot doesn’t give as good a view of the fall but one can get some shots of the far cliff wall. We continued on our way along the trail that ends at Dundas Point. There are many side spurs leading to small viewpoints of the gorge and we followed a few to gather photos of the different sections of the colour below. About midway one can get down to a ridge of rock that juts out into the gorge and offers one a chance for some wide angle close-up views of the gorge. It was worth the effort to climb over the sketchy path to get to the ridge.
We made our way back up to the main trail and continued to an area near the final platform. Here you can get right down to the edge of the rock face where there is an serious overhang; one can gather a great number of interesting shots from this open spot. People were continually coming to stand or even sit on the edge and have their photos taken. We met one young couple who were recent immigrants from Iran. They climbed out to the edge and sat over it and asked Mike to take their photo. Mike moved along the cliff a bit to get to a spot that would show off the overhang they were sitting on. When they saw the gap that had been below them they were quite shocked! It was fun seeing them take in the grandeur of the gorge. Well, we all spent some time here gathering photos before moving on to the final platform. It really doesn’t offer a good a view of the gorge but does open up a great scene of Hamilton below. The dull day left the colours of the city very muted and it was not something I was interested in shooting. After a brief stay at the point and helping a few people with some group shots we set off back to the car. It went quickly as we didn’t stop for any serious photo taking – we were hungry and so that was mostly on our minds.
We packed up and set off for civilization below where we found a nice Thai Food restaurant; we were very impressed with the quality and taste of the food. We had ordered three dishes and shared them between us. The food was very good and we plan to return again. So, done we lunch we returned home having had a much better day of photo taking then we had expected.