Picture of the week

Cave of the Natural Bridge in Calaveras County

This natural bridge is found on a creek that feeds into the New Melones Reservoir.  It is about a 1 mile hike from the pavement off Parrotts Ferry Road.

It was acquired for the public as part of the development for this reservoir from the Airola family.  The Airola's owned the land and were cattle ranchers in the area since the late 1800's. They were not happy about surrendering this land, but had little choice due to eminent domain rules combined with being in a difficult financial situation at the time.

I visited the Airola's at their ranch in Angel's Camp and explored the area including this unique location.  While at the entrance to the cave, I also spied a pair of american dippers nesting inside, and was able to photograph one just upstream after slowly stalking it, and then resting my 100-400mm lens on a rock in order to achieve a 1/20 second shutter speed to accentuate the motion of the water.