Against my better judgement I decided to go shooting the Monday before we left for Maui. I’m certain that I probably should have given some more time to packing, but we’ll call it a birthday present to myself which was much more enjoyable. Since we left for Maui essentially right after I got back from shooting, I barely just had the time to go through and process the images.

It’s always amazing to head up Mt. Tamalpais, because you’d swear such a place couldn’t exist mere minutes outside San Francisco.  I’ve never been to Oregon, but from the pictures I’ve seen, some of what you see up on Mt. Tam isn’t too much different from what you might see in the Columbia River Gorge.  In this case, I decided to finally check out Cataract Falls, inspired by some of my Flickr contacts who were showcasing work from up there with the rain we had earlier in February.  Anyway, it turns out that Cataract Falls is a popular destination, especially on a holiday and not too long after considerable rain. I could have definitely used getting an earlier start, but my parents were visiting so I had some breakfast with them on their way out.

Cataract Falls isn’t so much a single waterfall as it is a number of smaller cascades one after another on a relatively short trail.  The elevation gain isn’t too strenuous (in fact if you click on the red marker on the map, you can see it’s only a few hundred feet total), and the scenery is beautiful.  Here’s the track log:

According to Mr. Waterfall, Leon Turnbull, Cataract Falls is a series of nine cascades, of which I managed to capture a couple.

After spending a couple hours around Cataract Falls, I decided to check out Rodeo Beach for sunset. Rodeo is a beach I’ve been wanting to hit up for sunset ever since I’ve seen various epic shots of the sea stacks up on Flickr. Unfortunately, the sunset on this day wasn’t exactly spectacular; but I captured a few frames anyway.

I’m not particularly happy with any of the images I came away with, but this is probably the best. I think the wider perspective and the vignette at least give it some character. I guess it just means I’ll have to get back up there again sometime soon!