SUNDAY MORNING ON THE SKYWAY

Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XS, Tamron 28-80 lens @ 41mm, ISO 100, f/14, 1.6 sec.

  Sunday morning was incredible!
  For the first time in a few weeks I decided to head out on a photo excursion. I've been refereeing basketball on Saturdays and it is absolutely wearing me out and just haven't been able to push myself out of bed early enough to go.
  My wife had to get up early and go to work so I finally motivated myself that when her alarm went off, I would get up and go out.  It was so worth it!
  The snow from last Monday and Tuesday is still hanging around and I chose to go back to the Cherohala Skyway and get some shots.  To my liking, the snow and ice were even more prevalent in the foothills of the Smokies. I tried to make my way to Bald River Falls but River Road was covered with ice and I didn't want to chance running my truck off that road.
  The Tellico River winds along next to the Cherohala and when River Road splits off  2 or 3 miles along the river follows it.  At the start, near Tellico Plains, TN, there is a small drive-in burger place and a covered bridge that are about 1/2 a mile apart (I will have a shot of the covered bridge in a later post). Almost dead in between them I spotted this beautiful cascade on the river. I parked at the burger place and hiked back to the cascade.
  The trip down the hill off of the road was covered in 7 or 8 inches of snow/ice and straight down for about 15 feet. Had to slide down on my backside. When I arrived at the bottom the view was awesome! Part of the river and rocks were covered in snow and ice and the river was partially frozen over.
  I couldn't see under the ice so I couldn't wade out into the heavy current.  I set up on the side and actually had my camera and tripod sitting on ice.  The sun was starting to peak out over the top of the mountains to the east so I had to deploy the ND8 neutral density filter along with the polarizer to cut down on glare.