Tunnel Behind a Waterfall!!! Horsehoe Mine Falls in Ellenville, NY

I first learned about Horseshoe Mine Falls with a mining tunnel behind it late last year. But also learning that I will have to wade in the pool if I wanted to photograph the waterfall from inside the tunnel, I decided to wait until the following spring when the temperatures warmed up.

So it’s late spring the following year and the waders I ordered finally arrived. I went to visit Horseshoe Mine Falls. I was not disappointed.

When I started hiking the Catskills and surrounding regions to photograph and film waterfalls more than a year ago, I thought of the activity more as “work” than “pleasure”. I got up early before sunrise and drove to a remote location over an hour away sometimes hiking for a mile or two and the night before I ran through a series of checklists making sure my cameras were in working order, the memory cards formatted, the batteries charged, and the drone’s firmware up-to-date, not to mention the research I did to know something of the place that I may say something worthwhile on video for the viewers to hear. I did not at all buy into a favorite quote among outdoor lovers attributed to naturalist John Muir saying, “the mountains are calling and I must go”. I did not consider myself to be among the flock. It was, for me, pure work.

And when I arrived at the waterfall, I had to decide where to position the cameras, where to launch the drone from, what to say about what I was seeing, and ultimately decide whether I have captured enough on video before I left. My mind was constantly on a future outcome instead of the present moment that my nature-tripping became obsessively “work” far removed from the “play” that it should have been.

But recently having found a new job, I became immersed in corporate work encased in steel, glass, and concrete looking after the company’s bottom-line. My mind was constantly dialed to a future outcome. I was left with little time and energy if at all for spontaneous activities like the nature-tripping I used to do.

Yet two months in to my work, I began to feel a longing for the outdoors. I will drive past the woods and see the mountains in the distance and from somewhere within me a pang of desire would surge wanting to be there instead of here on the asphalt road on my way to work. Spring, a waterfall recently made public, a mining tunnel, and the arrival of my waders could not have come at a better time. It’s off to Horseshoe Mine Falls I go.

The trip had a sort of coming-home feel to it when I arrived. Standing at the trailhead for the waterfall I was about to commune with I could not help but think to myself, spend time in nature long enough in whatever capacity, condition, or demeanor you happen to be in, then stay away from her long enough, and, like a mountain from afar, she will come calling for her flock and shepherd you back.

Information for finding the falls: https://uncoveringnewyork.com/horsesh...