Shenandoah National Park, VA, 8/6/2005
My friend Anita loved the sight and sound of waterfalls, and found them to be spiritually healing. The year I lived in Virginia I discovered Dark Hollow Falls Trail in Shenandoah National Park. The trail is lined with beautiful little falls, and so I knew I had to bring Anita there so she could enjoy them. We traveled to the park on a hazy summer day and hiked down the trail to its namesake, the largest and prettiest waterfall: Dark Hollow Falls. A 70-foot cascade, Dark Hollow Falls is the easiest waterfall to reach in the park. Anita loved it, we had a great adventure, and I made this photograph. Hollows cut into the face of the mountain are the work of the streams that flow through them. Down Dark Hollow flows a creek called Hogcamp Branch, which drains nearby Big Meadows Swamp to the south. Along the trail it can be seen how the stream works to cut its valley deeper and gradually wear away the mountain. The benches that form the cascades are developed on a resistant basalt flow of the Catoctin Formation where selective weathering along gently inclined fractures has caused differential removal of the rock material at several horizons.
