Fall Foliage 2018 Part 1: Vermont and a stormy Franconia Notch
13th November 2018
Chasing Peak Foliage in Vermont 2018
I am always grateful to live in Northern New England, but even more so during fall foliage season. Tourists and photographers fly in from all over the world, but for me it's my backyard!
The first areas I visit are the Zealand Valley in the White Mountains of New Hampshire and the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. These areas usually peak first, even before the rest of the White Mountains.
Here are some highlights from this year's trip to the areas surrounding the Groton State Forest in Vermont:
Waiting and hoping for good light to materialize at Nichols Ledge.
The epic color never materialized. This was the best that it got.
I was somewhat surprised to be joined by 4 other photographers at this spot. There is no signage at the parking lot and its kind of in the middle of nowhere. This must be the influence internet and social media. I became aware of Nichols Ledge through a 2 page spread in Backpacker Magazine a few years ago. If you are going to photograph it at sunset, I offer the following photo advice: 1: Bring a wide angle lens, I shot the above with a 24mm, but would have loved a 16mm. 2: Get there early. Space will fill up. The ledge really only has enough space for 2 people to shoot "the shot" on the ledge safely. If you are willing to go further left you could sit and shoot on the 2.5 foot wide section, but with at least a 600 foot straight drop, it's a risk I wouldn't take gear or life wise. 3: The trail is not hard to follow in daylight, but it is not blazed and can be a little harder to follow at night. Try to remember the entrance to the trail from ledge and some landmarks as you hike up with light.
The next morning I visited Turtlehead Pond (aka Marshfield Pond). This too was surprisingly popular, despite requiring a dark 20 minutes drive down a maze of dirt roads. I was eventually joined by photographers from Germany, Minnesota, Massachusetts, and California. Though it was cloudless, the 35 degree temp created interesting mist at sunrise.
Photo Tip: If the mist is moving you can create a nice ghostly effect using long exposures. The next two images are different crops of the same shot; I couldn't decide which way to crop it. It was a 5 second exposure, which was easy enough to create in the low light before sunrise without any filters. If I were to have added a polarizing filter, it would have cut 1 stop of light and made it a 10 second exposure.
When the light hit the pond there was an intense beam that struck where the pond narrowed and I loved the effect.
The clear sky was short lived and clouds rolled in 20 minutes afterward and stayed for the rest of the day.
Bailey Pond
I am not normally into roadside shots but there were a few interesting scenes on my way to my next location for the day.
My next stop was a hike up Owl's Head in Groton State Forest. The classic view revealed nice foliage but Camel's Hump was obscured by cloud cover in the distance.
Looking toward Spruce Mountain:
There were a vast series of ledges to explore on some herd paths that extended half a mile past the summit. I was able to find unique vantage points to create a few shots that looked like they were taken from a drone but were really enabled by standing on the clifftops with a 300mm lens. I don't use drones and find that they kill the wilderness experience for others.
There were some nice details in the forest if you looked carefully.
I should have stayed in Vermont that day, but for some reason I thought that driving nearly 3 hours to spend the next day in the Grafton Notch area of Maine was a good idea. The cloudy, rainy forecast was ideal for the kind of waterfall and foliage shots I had long envisioned in that area. However, by the time I got to the border of NH on I93, I realized it just wasn't worth it. Fierce looking clouds pouring down the slopes of Franconia Ridge and Cannon Mountain in the distance were a further enticement to head back south and cut my trip short by a day.
Despite telling myself I would not ever go to Franconia Notch on Columbus Day weekend again, I found myself shooting scenes of the clouds forming and whizzing past the cliffs of Cannon Mountain. I was tempted to make a long exposure for the clouds, but the effects of the 40 to 50 mph gusts on the leaves, and my tripod, made me decide against it.
If you can zoom close enough you can see climbers on the cliffs!
As expected, traffic was at a standstill through Franconia Notch so I used the remaining daylight to hike the Pemi Trail and found a few shots along the way:
A good trip to Vermont all in all!
The next post will be my 3 day Acadia trip during peak foliage from Mid- October 2018!
I am always grateful to live in Northern New England, but even more so during fall foliage season. Tourists and photographers fly in from all over the world, but for me it's my backyard!
The first areas I visit are the Zealand Valley in the White Mountains of New Hampshire and the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. These areas usually peak first, even before the rest of the White Mountains.
Here are some highlights from this year's trip to the areas surrounding the Groton State Forest in Vermont:
Waiting and hoping for good light to materialize at Nichols Ledge.
The epic color never materialized. This was the best that it got.
I was somewhat surprised to be joined by 4 other photographers at this spot. There is no signage at the parking lot and its kind of in the middle of nowhere. This must be the influence internet and social media. I became aware of Nichols Ledge through a 2 page spread in Backpacker Magazine a few years ago. If you are going to photograph it at sunset, I offer the following photo advice: 1: Bring a wide angle lens, I shot the above with a 24mm, but would have loved a 16mm. 2: Get there early. Space will fill up. The ledge really only has enough space for 2 people to shoot "the shot" on the ledge safely. If you are willing to go further left you could sit and shoot on the 2.5 foot wide section, but with at least a 600 foot straight drop, it's a risk I wouldn't take gear or life wise. 3: The trail is not hard to follow in daylight, but it is not blazed and can be a little harder to follow at night. Try to remember the entrance to the trail from ledge and some landmarks as you hike up with light.
The next morning I visited Turtlehead Pond (aka Marshfield Pond). This too was surprisingly popular, despite requiring a dark 20 minutes drive down a maze of dirt roads. I was eventually joined by photographers from Germany, Minnesota, Massachusetts, and California. Though it was cloudless, the 35 degree temp created interesting mist at sunrise.
Photo Tip: If the mist is moving you can create a nice ghostly effect using long exposures. The next two images are different crops of the same shot; I couldn't decide which way to crop it. It was a 5 second exposure, which was easy enough to create in the low light before sunrise without any filters. If I were to have added a polarizing filter, it would have cut 1 stop of light and made it a 10 second exposure.
When the light hit the pond there was an intense beam that struck where the pond narrowed and I loved the effect.
The clear sky was short lived and clouds rolled in 20 minutes afterward and stayed for the rest of the day.
Bailey Pond
I am not normally into roadside shots but there were a few interesting scenes on my way to my next location for the day.
My next stop was a hike up Owl's Head in Groton State Forest. The classic view revealed nice foliage but Camel's Hump was obscured by cloud cover in the distance.
Looking toward Spruce Mountain:
There were a vast series of ledges to explore on some herd paths that extended half a mile past the summit. I was able to find unique vantage points to create a few shots that looked like they were taken from a drone but were really enabled by standing on the clifftops with a 300mm lens. I don't use drones and find that they kill the wilderness experience for others.
There were some nice details in the forest if you looked carefully.
I should have stayed in Vermont that day, but for some reason I thought that driving nearly 3 hours to spend the next day in the Grafton Notch area of Maine was a good idea. The cloudy, rainy forecast was ideal for the kind of waterfall and foliage shots I had long envisioned in that area. However, by the time I got to the border of NH on I93, I realized it just wasn't worth it. Fierce looking clouds pouring down the slopes of Franconia Ridge and Cannon Mountain in the distance were a further enticement to head back south and cut my trip short by a day.
Despite telling myself I would not ever go to Franconia Notch on Columbus Day weekend again, I found myself shooting scenes of the clouds forming and whizzing past the cliffs of Cannon Mountain. I was tempted to make a long exposure for the clouds, but the effects of the 40 to 50 mph gusts on the leaves, and my tripod, made me decide against it.
If you can zoom close enough you can see climbers on the cliffs!
As expected, traffic was at a standstill through Franconia Notch so I used the remaining daylight to hike the Pemi Trail and found a few shots along the way:
A good trip to Vermont all in all!
The next post will be my 3 day Acadia trip during peak foliage from Mid- October 2018!