(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Funding for "View Finders" is provided by Troncalli Subaru, located on Highway 9 in Cumming.

Visit Troncalli Subaru, or find out more online at troncallisubaru.com.

(cheerful music) - [Announcer] Here at United Community Bank, we are committed to doing the little things to earn customer trust, one customer at a time.

United Community Bank is a proud sponsor of "View Finders."

(relaxing upbeat music) (hollow click) (dramatic upbeat music) - It has canyons that are over a thousand feet deep.

- It has 64 miles of hiking trails and two stunning waterfalls.

- It's the only place in Georgia where you can find coal.

- This is Cloudland Canyon.

I'm Paul.

- I'm Chris.

- [Both] And we're the "View Finders."

(upbeat bluegrass music) (harmonica blues music) - [Musician] I hate to sing.

That'd make Tia giving them eyes, and I got someone back in Georgia waiting on me, baby.

(harmonica blues music) ♪ Goin' back to Georgia ♪ ♪ Where the water tastes like cherry wine ♪ ♪ Say that Georgia moonshine ♪ - Paul and I just got here to Cloudland Canyon and it is beautiful.

It is like peak color, or approaching peak color, and we have a nice cloud-filled sky so we have flat light which means we can shoot pretty much all day.

We don't have to wait for the sun to get low to get some good images.

And I don't know about you, I'm really excited.

- Definitely excited.

As I was telling Chris before, this is my first time in about five years coming up here and probably the first time I've been up here at like peak conditions, you know?

- [Chris] Yeah.

- It's not fading away.

There's still some leaves on the trees.

They turn color.

- Yeah.

- And I see a lot of colors out there that get me kinda festive.

I see the red.

I see the green.

- Yeah.

- So you can give me my Christmas present now.

We'll be good to go.

- I know!

I tell you, we got a little Christmas present waiting for us.

And you know, for photography this time of year, Southern Appalachians, I mean it's like as good as it gets.

- [Paul] Yeah.

- [Chris] And so it's been fun for me just watching you walking around.

He's had this big grin on his face, camera out.

- [Paul] I'm like a kid in the candy shop right now.

(laughs) - [Chris] There's leaves everywhere.

They're falling outta the sky.

I mean it's just- - [Paul] I'm ready to go.

I'm ready to go like right now.

- Yeah.

It's beautiful.

I think we're gonna get some really good images.

- Yeah.

- Looking forward to just kinda walking around exploring the park.

It's one of the prettiest parks in Georgia, I think.

- Yeah.

- And the conditions are just great.

And then also here in just a little bit, we're going caving.

Are you ready for this?

- [Paul] Yeah, I think I can be ready for caving.

- We're going caving.

I haven't been caving before.

- I haven't either.

- Okay.

- What are we gonna get out of the caving?

- I don't know.

Other than he said it's very, very dark 'cause it's a cave.

- [Paul] Okay.

- And there's critters.

And I don't know what critters means.

- Critters?

- [Chris] I assume- - How big are the critters?

(upbeat music) - Okay.

Good afternoon.

I'm Jerry Wallace and I'm one of the park naturalists at Cloudland Canyon State Park.

And we are here atop Lookout Mountain, in the far northwestern corner of Georgia.

This is about as far as you can get without being in Tennessee or Alabama, right up in that little corner.

And we are here looking out into, we're on the rim of Cloudland Canyon, looking out into Sitton's Gulch.

And Sitton's Gulch is the name that used to be given to the canyon here.

And in 1938 when the park was created, it was christened Cloudland Canyon State Park and it's named that because of the clouds that roll into the canyon from the valley, it's like a cloud tide that gets sucked into the canyon.

It'll pull back out.

Sometimes we're up above the clouds, sometimes we're totally in the clouds.

So it's a beautiful phenomenon, if you're fortunate enough to see it rolling in and out like that.

So Cloudland Canyon State Park is unique among Georgia's parks in a couple of ways.

And one way that it is unique is that it is the only state park in Georgia that lies atop the Cumberland Plateau.

So the Cumberland Plateau is part of the larger Appalachian Plateau that encompasses the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Appalachian Chain to the east of us.

The Cumberland Plateau stretches from this part of Georgia and Alabama, it parallels the Appalachians up into Middle Tennessee, Kentucky, and on up the Eastern Seaboard into New England.

(harmonica blues music) ♪ But Georgia's got ahold of me ♪ ♪ I got a sweet little girl there ♪ ♪ Oh, she means so much to me ♪ - [Chris] All right.

Guess it's time.

We're about to go underground.

- [Paul] Get suited up.

- Get suited up.

I've never done anything like this before.

- Me neither.

- But the good news is it's very stylish.

This is gonna look great on television for us.

I mean, look at you.

Look at me.

(laughs) - Chris!

Uh-oh.

I think I need a bigger one.

My head's too big.

(laughs) - Is your head too big?

It's 'cause your photography's so good, man.

- I wish.

- You know, it's made your head big.

Well, you know when they start giving you all this protective gear it makes me wonder what we got in store for us.

- Yeah.

- But anyway, kinda cool though.

Like this is a different type of photography.

- It's a new experience.

It's definitely a new experience.

- I don't even know what I'll be able to get, but I'm guessing it's gonna be some long exposure stuff.

- Well, the light's gonna be low.

- Yep, no doubt.

- We're gonna have to do some crawling.

We've been warned already.

- Yeah, and hopefully our gear doesn't take too big of a beating.

- I don't know what I'm gonna take in there though.

- I know.

- I mean, my gear's not used to getting, you know?

- Yeah.

Exactly.

I don't even know how to get my knee pads on.

(laughs) Look, this is terrible.

(relaxing guitar music) You're in better shape than I am.

I gotta carry this in.

And they've made it sound like we're gonna get dirty.

- Yeah, we will.

(Chris laughs) But this right here is The Beast.

- The Beast?

- And if there's any camera that can handle it.

- The Beast?

Is that lens have a name?

- Not yet.

- Not yet.

Okay.

- But the camera has a name.

- The camera is The Beast.

- Yeah.

- I get it.

- This thing is a tank.

- [Chris] That is a massive camera.

- You can drop it off a skyscraper and maybe still get a shot or two after picking it up.

- [Chris] Well then, this shouldn't phase it.

This shouldn't phase it.

- Yeah.

We'll know when we test it.

- Might have a little dirt on it afterwards.

We'll find out.

All right, well, let's do it.

- Let's go!

- Yeah.

(upbeat music) (relaxing music) (upbeat music) - All right, we are in the bottom of Cloudland Canyon at the mouth of Sitton's Gulch in Cloudland Canyon State Park, and we're standing at the entrance of Sitton's Cave.

So this cave has been known about for, oh, 100, 150 years maybe.

Named after a local family, the Sittons.

Also the name of Sitton's Gulch.

The canyon was named after them as well.

So this cave has been known about for a long time.

It is a limestone cave.

That's what all of the rock around us is formed of.

So this cave is about mile and a half in total length and it's also connected hydrologically to another cave in the park that's about that same length.

But the only way that they're connected is down in the aquifer, and we can't go from one to the other.

And both of these caves do require a permit to enter or you can go with us on one of our guided trips.

- I think Paul and I are pretty excited about this.

- Yeah, I'm ready for this one.

- I mean, I've never done anything like this.

This is steep entrance.

♪ Jolene ♪ ♪ Come back on a sunny day you see ♪ ♪ Everybody's got dragons to slay and I don't feel so good ♪ ♪ So what to do ♪ ♪ Take it down to the Lincoln Park Zoo ♪ ♪ We'll let yourself in the orangutan zoo ♪ ♪ And have a real good time ♪ - [Caver] Oh!

Ah!

(lens clicking) - [Caver] What was that?

- [Photographer] That was my lens cap.

♪ Walking down the street in the cold ♪ ♪ I'm fast, fast, fast, fast, fast, fast ♪ ♪ What are you gonna do ♪ (camera snaps) ♪ Well, you fought to find out ♪ ♪ And your brain is dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead ♪ ♪ What are you gonna do ♪ - [Jerry] How are you doing, Paul?

- [Paul] I'm fine.

- [Chris] You good?

You ever seen the movie "Descent?"

- [Paul] No.

- [Chris] Well, it's good you haven't, Paul, because that's what this reminds me of.

It is terrifying.

Oh man!

- [Caver] That okay?

- [Caver] Yep.

I'm just, I'm not 20 anymore so things hurt.

Things hurt differently.

- [Caver] I'm in the 40s now.

- [Caver] Things hurt differently in your 40s.

♪ Running down the street in the cold ♪ ♪ I'm fast, fast, fast, fast, fast, fast, fast ♪ ♪ What are you gonna do ♪ ♪ Well, you fought to find out ♪ ♪ And your brain is dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead ♪ ♪ What are you gonna do ♪ - Okay.

Oh boy.

Ugh!

- [Videographer] Paul, did you know you signed up for this?

- No, I'm going back, man.

I'll see you guys later.

- We're in the entrance of Sitton's Cave and what we're looking at is some of the ancient remains of the ancient sea creatures that make up this limestone.

But one of the major conservation issues that we're facing here in the park, in this cave, (somber music) and in caves all over the country now really, is the disease that's killing bats.

So there are about 16 or so species of bats that use caves to hibernate in.

The bats that use caves to hibernate in are getting a disease called White-Nose Syndrome and it's a disease that first appeared in New England about 15 years ago, and it spread rapidly down the Eastern Seaboard.

As bats migrated and as their ranges overlapped, as they went from cave to cave, they spread it to each other.

And it's a fungus that gets on them while they hibernate.

And this disease got here about seven years ago.

We first noticed it in this cave in the park, and it has left a wake of millions of dead bats as it came down this way.

And what used to be a fairly sizable population of bats in this cave has dwindled from about 2,000 a year that we'd count in the winter as we come in here to check their population.

Before White-Nose Syndrome, we'd typically count about 2,000 bats from the entrance here to the back end of the cave.

That has dwindled to about 45 to 75 bats a year, so that population has decreased dramatically.

(somber music continues) - [Chris] Hi.

- [Paul] Chris, what'd you think?

- It was a workout.

- Definitely.

- I mean we made it.

We went in, we got some pictures maybe, and we went spelunking, is that a correct term, Jerry?

Can we say we're spelunkers?

- You can.

- Would that be accurate?

- Beginning cavers.

Yes.

- I like spelunking though.

It just sounds really official.

Okay, well we're going spelunking.

Jerry might not agree, but we're gonna go with it.

- We took the beginner's route.

- Yeah.

- But it was still interesting.

My old camera here got some knicks and knacks on it, but it can handle it.

- They took a beating, definitely.

- Yeah.

- My clothes, everything.

I'm glad they told us to have gloves and I'm glad they told us to wear helmets.

- Yeah.

I bumped my head a couple times.

- 'Cause I smashed my helmet on the ceiling a couple times.

But it was a cool experience.

- I feel like I just got off the elliptical for a little while.

- I know!

It was a good workout.

- Yeah.

- I'm gonna be feeling it for a couple days, I guarantee you.

- Yeah.

- But you know, it's an awesome experience.

I don't know what our images are gonna look like, but, you know, it was really cool.

- And we got to see some bats.

- Got to see some bats.

Got to see some salamanders.

Got to see some fossils.

- Yeah.

- So yeah, it was pretty awesome.

I'm glad we did it.

- Yeah.

Me too.

Now let's get some water.

- Yeah!

Totally.

(relaxing guitar music) ♪ If you ever got directions from an old country man ♪ ♪ You might find his words a little hard to understand ♪ ♪ But if you pay close attention to that man's hands ♪ ♪ Well, he can guide you with ease on across this plain ♪ ♪ Well ♪ - [Chris] Well, Paul, what do you think?

- Ah, Chris.

Honestly I'm a little disappointed.

- Yeah.

- Just a little.

- Yeah.

- People who've been to this waterfall, I'm quite sure you know what it's supposed to look like, what it normally looks like.

But with the lack of rain in the area, we just have to make do with what we got here.

- Yeah.

It's been kinda drought conditions for a while and we're seeing it.

There's not much coming over the top.

So we're gonna just have to get creative I think with our compositions and how we're gonna frame this and photograph this to try to- - [Paul] Get it smaller.

- Yeah.

Try to come away with something that we like.

But we both know, we both have been here, we know what it can be.

- Yeah.

- And so it's disappointing we can't make that happen, especially with the fall color.

It's so pretty, you know?

But it's part of photography.

You just- - I still think it's a good opportunity to kinda get close and intimate with some of the smaller little streams and flows that we have down here.

- [Chris] Mm-hmm.

- I think those are gonna come out pretty good.

There's still color, leaves are falling into the water, so we got a good reflection going on.

So I think we'll be okay.

I think we'll be okay.

- I kinda like the way you're thinking about it.

Like let's take this and instead of just being disappointed, instead of just like, "Well, this was a bust," let's twist and shape this into, "We're gonna do something different that we normally wouldn't do because of the conditions that we're being given."

I think that we can still get something good, even though we want more water.

So anyway, let's make it happen.

- Let's go.

(relaxing upbeat music) ♪ Well, I've used my share of all the maps and apps ♪ ♪ That our modern day provides ♪ ♪ But I'm here in the hills where the moonshine stills ♪ ♪ And the country boys still reside ♪ - So we have basically three different types of rocks that make up the geology of the park and of the Cumberland Plateau, sedimentary rocks.

And if you look across the valley here, the basement rock down in the valley and up parts of the flanks of the sides of the mountains, is limestone.

So that was the first layer that got put down long, long, long ago at the bottom of shallow seas.

And limestone is mostly made up of the remains of long dead sea creatures.

And their fossils we still find in the limestone in the park and elsewhere in the Cumberland Plateau.

So then the other layer, the layer that you see that's the steep walls of the canyon, different layers, that's sandstone that was deposited around the edges of those seas and in swamps around the edges of those seas and river deltas.

And because of that, we have coal in the park which is fossilized organic material.

In the north end of the park there were surface coal mines.

We also find fossils of lots of ancient tree ferns in the sandstone in the park.

And then the other main mineral is shale, and it's a softer mineral.

It's essentially compressed mud, layers of mud and silt and clay that got compressed.

So it's a softer mineral.

And that's that layer that you see with the trees on it.

It's more not as vertical as the sandstone and it's got more nutrients for the trees to grow on and is not as steep, so it's a softer layer.

And those are the three typical.

There are other minerals of course, but those are the three main minerals that make up the Cumberland Plateau and our park.

(relaxing music) - So right now is when it's nice to have a dedicated camera with a pretty good sensor because we've got really challenging light.

We've got this super dark canyon.

It's beautiful and it's full of color, but it is dark compared to the sky so that's like a real high dynamic range scene.

And so Paul and I are both kinda working our cameras, working our sensors, working our settings, to do everything we can to get a lot of good detail out of the canyon, the color, the rock walls, but also not lose the sky.

And so that takes a fair amount of trial and error to get those exposures correct.

But you know, Paul's working through his settings right now and I can just see on the back of his screen some of these shots are looking really good.

So I'm excited to see what both of us come away with here.

- And what we're trying to do here too, as we were saying before, is create some drama in the sky.

There is some drama right now.

As photographers, what they mean by drama is just some kinda cloud cover with some sunlight coming through it, just something to draw the eye to the sky.

(relaxing music continues) (camera snaps) (mysterious relaxing music) (camera snaps) (mysterious relaxing music continues) - Well, we had a good couple days here.

- Yeah.

- I mean, I feel like I came away with some different shots, shots I don't have.

The light this morning was epic.

I mean, it was just so good.

- [Paul] It was.

It was.

- [Chris] Absolutely Beautiful.

- [Paul] The cloud.

The cloud cover too.

- [Chris] The clouds just rolling in, it was just creating such a mood.

And then with the colors kind of peeking through.

- [Paul] Yeah.

- [Chris] It just was screaming fall in the Appalachians.

You know?

- Like I said, I haven't been here and had it looking this colorful as it did this weekend, so.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

I'm looking forward to getting back and putting these up on the computer and seeing what kinda colors and what kinda contrasts I can get out of these things 'cause I know I got some pretty good shots.

- Absolutely, man.

Well, let's do that and let's move on to the next destination too.

- Let's go.

- All right, man.

(relaxing music) ♪ Hollers in the woods call out ♪ ♪ Trails up mountains climb ♪ ♪ Waves and sand keep beat and time ♪ ♪ Mossy blankets, swirling streams ♪ ♪ Over rocks and dirt ♪ ♪ Run at pace with all the earth ♪ ♪ Could we capture nature's wonder ♪ ♪ Find our way to getting lost ♪ ♪ Freeze a frame to save forever ♪ ♪ Adventure worth the cost ♪ ♪ Bees and dandelion grain ♪ ♪ Dance in sun-soaked fields ♪ ♪ Wind and gleam together yield ♪ ♪ Pocket worries fade to dim ♪ ♪ Wait on focus new ♪ ♪ Wild is coming into view ♪ (upbeat music) - [Announcer] Funding for "View Finders" is provided by Troncalli Subaru, located on Highway 9 in Cumming.

Visit Troncalli Subaru, or find out more online at troncallisubaru.com.

(cheerful music) - [Announcer] Here at United Community Bank, we are committed to doing the little things to earn customer trust, one customer at a time.

United Community Bank is a proud sponsor of "View Finders."