Waterfalls in Western MA

 As I just wrote, most of the Mohawk Trail is still closed and there are lots of detours our in Western MA from Hurricane Irene. One of the places I had planned for us to visit was Tannery Falls in Savoy MA. I had the route all mapped out. We were on the road to get to the parking area, where we would park before the hike into the falls. The road was dirt, single lane, rutty, steep, and not in the best condition. But we drove it anyways. And we drove, and drove and drove......until we got the point where the road was completely washed out and we couldn't go any further. Oops............Sorry Mr. S. Thanks anyways for the ride from hell through the woods..........Seriously, he was okay with it, but I felt bad!! The good news is there was a pond alongside where the road was washed out so I took a few shots.

Day 195/Year 2

So, the long trip through the road from hell wasn't a waste of time afterall. I was disappointed we couldn't physically get to the waterfall, but I knew we had one more waterfall on our itinerary.

We eventually made our way to Waconah Falls State Park in Windsor MA. I LOVED it here. It was a short hike down to the falls from the parking lot. It's a beautiful waterfall. I had some difficulty photographing with the lighting. It was a gorgeous sunny day, and there were dapples of bright sunlight that made the scene spectacular to look at, but it made photographing the falls quite difficult. I did the best with what I had and here are 2 of the shots I got here:

On this second shot, notice the shaft of light coming down on the right hand side. Not ideal for waterfall photography, but I found it pretty cool so I left it in the image.

These were taken around noontime. Remember, we had hit the road in SE MA at 5:30am. I got quite a few shots that morning!

By the way, we have since found out there is a second more direct road to get to Tannery Falls State Park that we could have taken. Oops. Oh well, the road from hell was an adventure not soon to be forgotten! :-)