Bridal Veil Falls Winter Gallery

    It’s interesting how differently areas that are so close together, can be so different in the Park. Since the big floods in 2013, I’ve visited three falls in this corner of the Park, McGregor Falls, West Creek Falls, and this weekend, Bridal Veil Falls. Approaching both McGregor and West Creek Falls, the valleys were scoured from the floods. Great piles of stones and boulders littered the stream bed. Trees were ripped up from their roots and snapped like matchsticks. Since those two hikes bracket the approach to Bridal Veil Falls, and are under a mile as the clouds fly, I expected the same.

    But it was as if there had been no floods. No sign at all of the damage that is still being repaired elsewhere. The river bed was the same overgrown groves of aspen and pine. Cow Creek still wove its way around boulders from pool to pool, hiding itself under mounds of snow and ice. A remnant of what was just months ago, and a reminder that the floods may damage, but that damage is part of the process and doesn’t even act evenly.