Ingleton
9th September 2014
It has been many years since I visited the waterfalls trail at Ingleton.
I don’t even think I have any shots of it on film from what I can remember so that gives you a very good indication that it must be lost in the mists of time.
My memory of it was of fenced off pathways in dark cramped gullies.
Well some of that is true but there are also some beautiful falls here.
Not all lend themselves to photography but that is not the only reason I take in scenes like this.
Sometimes it is just good to see something that makes you appreciate our natural world.
The falls are on private land and there is an admission charge to walk the trail but that includes parking and is less than the criminal charges the National Trust make in many parts for us to able to visit the places supposedly held in trust for our nation.
The Ingleton Waterfalls Trail is well managed, clean and tidy. Although some people still feel the need to leave their picnic garbage where they had their meals, presumably because they are too weak and pathetic to carry the empty bottles and wrappers back home with them, on the whole it was a pleasure to see a stream with so little rubbish in it.
It’s a fairly steep and rugged walk, enough to make me wish I wasn’t carrying a full frame camera system and tripod with me.
I often think to myself, should I trim this lot down a bit, leave that lens or another. Sometimes I dream of just carrying a compact camera that would deliver the sort of results you see here.
If only it was that easy.
I use wide angles a lot in my photography but when you need a telephoto there really is no substitute for carrying a heavy lump of glass.
The shot you see here on the left was a long shot because it was the only way to see the upper cascades above the main fall.
If I had made a guess as to which lens to leave in the vehicle to lighten my load, it would have been this 3lb monster.
In the end, it was the lens I used most of all because of the fenced off pathways and the dark cramped gullies.
You see, there really is a reason why I have a permanent hunch and over developed shoulders.
I could lighten the tripod I suppose but I really don’t trust the light weight contraptions I have seen so far.
I actually have a relatively light pod, which many people would still consider heavy, but when I stand it in a stream of water the way my mid weight pod was used for the shot on the right here, it just doesn’t deliver the stability I have come to rely upon.
I’ve never found a good photo-backpack that suits my needs but I am looking now at adapting my own for the job but the design keeps getting tweaked as I think of new ways of doing it.
Some day I’ll get around to doing it I suppose.
There are two river gorges on the trail and personally I found the first one, up to Thornton Force the most photogenic but do not dismiss the other as it is beautiful in it’s own right and makes a circular completion of the walk bringing you back down to Ingleton and the car park.
