Quechee Gorge
Woodstock, VT
Often called Vermont's Little Grand Canyon, this 165-foot-deep gorge was carved by glacial activity along the Ottauquechee River. The gorge is spanned by Route 4, which provides an overhead vantage point, and a trail descends to the river below. The narrow chasm and rushing water are especially dramatic during spring runoff.
Photography Guide
- Best Time
- morning
- Crowds
- Busy
- Shot Types
- widelandscapelong-exposure
- Best Seasons
- springsummerfall
Author's Comments
The bridge does most of the work for you, and that is part of the problem. You park, you walk to the rail, you look down a hundred and sixty-five feet at a river running through a slot of stone, and you take the same photograph that several million people have already taken. I am not going to pretend that view is not striking. It is. The geology is real and the drop is real and on a clear morning in May, with the runoff loud enough to hear from the road, the gorge does feel like something the landscape kept hidden and then suddenly revealed. But the photograph is down at the river. The trail off the east side of the bridge drops steeply through hemlock and birch, and forty minutes later you are standing at water level looking up at walls that felt abstract from above and now feel close enough to touch. This is where a long exposure earns its keep - the water going to silk against the dark schist, the light filtering down in narrow shafts, the bridge itself reduced to a thin line against the sky if you frame it that way. Spring is the season. Morning is the hour, before the gorge fills with the sound of voices from the rail above. Most people stay on the bridge. That is the editorial in a sentence.
Gallery
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