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More than forty years ago, writer and photographer Tim Palmer set out to write a biography of the Youghiogheny River. Known for white water rafting as well as industry, the Youghiogheny flows mostly north from its source in West Virginia, through Ohiopyle State Park in the Laurel Highlands, and empties into the Monongahela River a little south of Pittsburgh. Palmer revisited its waters and banks a couple of years ago in a revised edition of Youghiogheny: Appalachian River for the University of Pittsburgh Press.
Now, he has a new book of essays and photographs called Watching the River Run: A Photographic Journey Down the Youghiogheny. Palmer has a book event scheduled in Pittsburgh on Friday, April 18. The Allegheny Front’s Kara Holsopple spoke with him about the book.
LISTEN to the interview
Kara Holsopple: So when were these photographs taken?
Tim Palmer: Most of the photos in this book I took in 2022,2023, and 2024. But some of them go way back. I actually started taking pictures on the Yough when I was 12 years old. I had an old Brownie reflex camera that you looked down into the viewfinder, and as a little kid, I took pictures there.
Then I wrote a book about the Yough that was published in 1984. and updated in 2023. So I took a lot of pictures for that first book in the early 80s. And I drew on some of those. But most of them I did in the last few years with a new digital camera.
Kara Holsopple: As you mentioned, you have that connection with southwestern Pennsylvania from boyhood. What keeps bringing you back to the Yough?
Tim Palmer: The beauty of the place, you know. It’s just gorgeous, and it’s one of the really choice remnants of nature in our state. Not that it’s pristine, but nearly so compared to most of the state. And it’s been remarkably restored.
My personal roots go back to my family, which originally settled there in 1787 right after the Revolutionary War. My ancestors had a land grant for fighting in the war. I went there as a little child because my grandmother was there, my aunt and uncle were there. And I would stay there for part of the summers, even when I was very young and on into my teenage years. So the place… just imprinted on me very deeply and very profoundly. I’ve been an environmental writer now for 50 years, and I find that the Yough is just a fascinating example.
And of course, it’s a super fun place to go. I mean, that’s really the main thing. And actually for many people, the only thing. It’s super fun for whitewater boating, now for biking, just swimming in the river. for escape from the urban scene. And that actually is the root of this new book.
My realization that the Yough and Ohiopyle State Park in particular have been deeply appreciated for the recreational opportunities there and just the opportunity to have a really great time in the outdoors. All the time, I recognized that nature was getting sort of short shrift here, and I really wanted to play that up, to play up the awareness of the natural systems here, of the way nature has triumphed after years and after many, many insults and setbacks.
What makes this place worthwhile for recreation goes back to those fundamental features of geology, climate, botany, wildlife, hydrology – all these things that I think if people understand more completely, our experience there will be far more rewarding.
“… that was just really being like in the river. It was like becoming one with that place. And of course, it was foaming and splashing, and the sound was roaring: a full sensory experience.”
Rafters from Wilderness Voyageurs on Cucumber Rapid, Youghiogheny River. Photo: Tim Palmer
Kara Holsopple: Do you have a favorite photograph in the book?
Tim Palmer: I’d kind of be a fool not to put my favorite photo on the cover. So there we go.
Kara Holsopple: And why is it your favorite?
Tim Palmer: The photo is taken at a very appropriately named rapid called Entrance. So good photo for the cover of the book, right? It’s the place where you can get the best, not counting the falls, which is sort of the icon. But beyond that, Entrance Rapid is probably the place where you get the biggest bang for the buck in a view of the river. It’s an absolutely gorgeous view.
It’s very easy to get to from Ohiopyle, like a quarter-mile walk down to these wonderful flat rocks out right into the rapids of the river there, with this mountain view in the background. So it’s this perfectly composed photo.
It is also an extremely significant place in my life. I mentioned as a kid. I went to Ohiopyle and I stayed at my grandmother’s house, which was just above the falls. It’s gone now. It’s part of the state park development. But I lived in her house there in the summertime. And I would go out wandering in the mountains all by myself as a 12-year-old. And one summer night, I walked down to the river below her place and sat on this big rock at Entrance Rapid. And, I was all alone, of course. Sweet summer night, the rhododendrons were blooming, the birds were singing, nobody was around.
Tim Palmer is the author of “Watching the River Run: A Photographic Journey Down the Youghiogheny. Photo: Ann Vileisis
I sat on this rock and just stared at the flowing water and the rest of the world disappeared. It could have been a thousand miles away. And suddenly it just popped into my mind that this place was perfect.
I looked around me and listened to that sound and smelled the sweet Appalachian air and I knew somehow deep in my bones, it was perfect for the simple reason it had been left alone. It was natural.
That was a very formative moment in my life that happened right there at Entrance Rapid. The rest of my life followed from that. I grew up in Beaver and I knew places where nature had been obliterated, and I saw the contrast here, and that led me eventually to study landscape architecture, and to become involved as an environmental planner, and then as a writer. And here I am today.
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Kara Holsopple: A lot of my childhood was spent in the autumn going to Ohiopyle to look at the leaves. That’s something we used to do from Pittsburgh all the time. So I appreciate especially the very classic photographs you have of the leaves turning. Were there any shots that were hard to get? There’s a lot of things from different angles here.
Tim Palmer: A lot of them were hard to get. I mean, I love the hard to-get photo. But let me think for a minute. Well, okay, the source. I trekked to the very headwaters of the river to see where it began. And actually, there’s a photo of that in the first book, not so much the second one, but it was difficult to get to that.
Much more accessible, but still a little adventure – I wanted to get a picture of Ohiopyle Falls. Again, this is the icon. Everybody sees it. You have a major viewing platform there where a million people a year go to look at the falls and take a photo of the classic shot there at the State Park Visitor Center.
But I wanted it to get something more intimate and revealing than that, or I should say in addition to that. So I walked down the other side of the river. which is not hard to do, the river right side as you’re faced downstream. And after a few hundred yards, as big flat rocks kind of taper down to where the Yough pitches over its 18-foot waterfall, I was able to scramble clear down to the base of the falls. It’s not a trail, but it’s easy to kind of scramble down to that if you’re… of good balance.
I got right up there almost underneath the cascading water where the rocks are all fractured and jumbled and piled up and got that close-up view at the base of the 18-foot cataract and to me that was just really being like in the river. It was like really being there myself and becoming one with that place. And of course, it was foaming and splashing, and the sound was roaring: full sensory experience.
Ohiopyle Falls from the right side, from the new book “Watching the River Run: A Photographic Journey Down the Youghiogheny.” Photo: Tim Palmer
Kara Holsopple: I feel like we have to give some sort of warning that we don’t condone scrambling down cliffs.
Tim Palmer: It’s not for everybody, but it wasn’t really hard either. And there are many places where, with just a little bit of a sense of adventure, you can really get a sensational view of this river.
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Tim Palmer is the author of Watching the River Run: A Photographic Journey Down the Youghiogheny. Palmer has a book event scheduled in Pittsburgh on Friday, April 18.
