Grotto Text

Grotto

Winner of the most yin award. Here’s a place that actually swallows light. A fern-covered rock wall rises like a scallop shell 30 feet above and six feet over a little jade-colored elbow in the river. The rock frames one side of a small pool that separates the cool grotto from a searing cobble beach on the other side. Absolutely no place to sit comfortably among the football-sized cobbles. You squat. The back of the grotto does have a slim ledge, barely deep enough to sit on and just wide enough for two people to perch there in the shade amid the deer ferns and shadows. It looks like an incredible place to kiss.
The pool itself is not too remarkable beyond the fact that it mediates so well between the two antagonists, light and shade. It’s no more than seven feet deep and about fifteen feet in diameter. The river is not visible from the trail heading up canyon. There’s a bench of land where people camp about 150 feet from the pool. This is where to drop your picnic basket since the beach is really uncomfortable. Expectation of privacy is good, although you can expect at least one group of hikers to visit during a weekend.