Thursday, July 31, 2008

Manganese Falls


Manganese falls in the middle of summer.


There's not much to Manganese falls, which is just south of Copper Harbor. It does drop through a relatively deep cut -- perhaps it's better in the spring, when there's more runoff.

For the moment, I'm posting this from the dorms at the University of Wisconsin, where I'm attending the MAA Mathfest. Yes, math camp, again!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've always found the Manganese Falls wanting, but to no fault of their own. All the elements for a great waterfall are there, especially the deep and narrow rocky gorge in which they tumble. But you can never get a good view without possibly descending down into the gorge yourself. Lighting is also horrible there.

I always found the falls down near Lake Fanny Hooe were much more exciting, just before Manganese Creek flows into the lake. If you take the "green trail / Kamikaze trail" from along Manganese Road, you'll cross the river just down stream from these falls. Much more interesting.

DC said...

Mike,

Yeah, I agree about Manganese falls. Some year I'll get out there when the snow's melting and show them in their real glory! I've climbed down to the bottom before and climbed around down there -- that's dodgy even in the driest years.

As for light, some day soon I'm going to buy an f/1.4 fixed lens and go around blatantly shooting all the craptacular light I can find. Then we'll see the falls better from below!

I had never heard of the falls by Lake Fanny Hooe. I'll have to go out there and add another notch to the waterfalling gun!

Anonymous said...

Well I suppose they're more rapids then falls - but I guess it all depends on your definition.

Anonymous said...

Nope, no math camp for me. I took math up to multivariable calculus, and couldn't get past the theory part of it.

To me math is very visual, but without visualization, I was lost.

I agree, the waterfall isn't much of a fall, but you captured it nicely.........:)

DC said...

Lisa -- actually, the canyon the waterfall is in is pretty cool, but it's such a pain to photograph!

BUT... you mentioned math... so be prepared! It's really unfortunate that we (math educators, colleges, universities... everyone really) implicitly encourage the idea that math = calculus. I'm in my 9th year of math studies (PhD now), and the last time I touched calculus (other than teaching it) was... in my first year. Calculus is a tool, true, but not even all mathematicians use it. For example, my sort of mathematics is all about the arrangements of objects and numbers -- pretty intuitive stuff, actually. We get into esoteric work, but the basics would probably be very interesting to most students, even people who don't like "math".

Anyhow, that's just one of my rants. One of the few things I can go on about more than photography is math education.

Thanks for stopping by! :)