The mountains of West Virginia offer relief from the summer heat, colorful foilage in the fall, and snow covered beauty in the winter. The area surrounding Blackwater Falls State Park offers a number of interesting waterfalls to photograph, which take on a very different look in the winter. I prefer a black and white treatment of these winter scenes, except for Douglas Falls, which is set amongst beautiful orange-red rocks as a result of past mining activity in the area.
Elakala Falls surrounded by icicles and trees encased in frozen water spray. The Elakala Falls trail crosses above on the footbridge.
Close up of Elakala Falls. If you look closely, you can see that water is still falling in the middle of the falls, while the most of surrounding drop has frozen over.
The beautiful setting for Blackwater Falls in winter,
Fresh snow blankets vegetation along the shore of the Blackwater Falls.
Boulder at the base of Blackwater Falls, covered in frozen spray,
Douglas Falls. The red color of rocks is from mining residue from an old coke ore mining site just upriver from the falls.