This small waterfall amongst the Redwood roots appeared only due to an intense amount of rainfall, in Thornewood Open Space, California.

This photograph is of a small unnamed (and usually nonexistent) waterfall in Thornewood Open Space, near Palo Alto, California. Thornewood is on the east side of the Santa Cruz Mountains, so it doesn't get as much fog as the Redwood forests on the west side of the mountains. This means that it dries out faster, and can look quite dejected in the summer months. However, when the rainy season picks up, the forests can explode with life almost instantly. This photograph was taken during an especially heavy stretch of rain. In fact, the rain was falling quite hard even during this photo – I was soaked from head to toe, but thankfully had a bag to protect my camera. Waterfalls and ponds started appearing in places I'd never seen them before, and the water was especially opaque from rinsing away the dry summer soils. This small waterfall particularly caught my eye, since it was flowing right next to some giant Redwood trees. This scene seemed to me like it was the stuff of imagination, not reality!

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