I go to Niagara Falls about once a month to have lunch with a few friends. There is so much mist from the rising foam that your clothes can get coated with fine water droplets, which gives a freezing chill on a summer's day and even more bone-chilling in winter!
Where you're standing in the lower photo is actually very scary if you walked about 100 feet further to your right... where that shelf of flat water can be seen on the right... because you can stand right at the edge of the cliff itself and be within 20 feet of the water and look straight down!
Here's what the Canadian side looks like at night in both summer and winter...
@swirlie Thank you for these absolutely gorgeous pictures. I actually did walk to the shelf and admired the sheer beauty of the river becoming the falls.
@onrealityofdreams Oh, you're very welcome! They even know me by my first name at the Dairy Queen in town, which means they probably think I'm a local tour guide! 😂
Would you ever jump over the fence and stand on the grassy area between the railing and the water falls?
@swirlie The only reason I didn't is because I didn't want to give one of the young children nearby any ideas that could prove dangerous, also didn't want to encourage any amateur photographers to do something stupid just for likes and follows.
@onrealityofdreams I can honestly tell you that I've done that a few times as a teenager! The real problem however, is spacial disorientation.
When you stand very close to the edge of the cliff like that while standing in that grassy little area, the rushing water and the motion of water all around you causes one to lose their balance very easily, even while standing on level ground within that grassy area.
Many people who have pulled this stunt have actually fallen over the side because of spacial disorientation, only one of which I've witnessed when it happened.
@onrealityofdreams The girl was a Japanese student who was attending the University of Toronto, who went to Niagara Falls on a bus trip with other Asian students for a day-trip.
When I saw her climb up and over the railing, I literally ran over to her to tell her of the disorientation issue and by the time I got to her, she had already landed on her feet on the grassy area beneath the railing and then stood up and looked at me as I tried to tell her in English not to look around herself at the water...
...but she held her hands up in the air, not understanding English too well, then immediately turned her head to the right and looked straight down at the falls only 6 feet from where she was standing, then IMMEDIATELY fell forward and into the falling water, unable to stop herself once she started losing her balance.
They found her body about 5 miles away at the mouth of Lake Ontario where the Niagara River drains into, which of course is downstream of the falls.
@onrealityofdreams It was bazaar actually, it looked like she was being sucked over the side by a vacuum from below, but having been there myself, there really isn't a vacuum at all, just lots of disorientation.
It was so bad for me when I last did it as a teenager, that I had to get on my hands and knees and literally crawl back to the railing and then crawl up and over the steel rail without looking sideways at any water... because I could literally feel myself being drawn over the side by the motion of the water which made me want to lean toward it to keep my balance, which of course would be the wrong thing to do.
@swirlie As you said she was pulled in by the overwhelming combination of the sight of the unbelievable amount of moving water, the mist, along with the roaring sound made by the water.
Exactly! You have to focus on getting up and out. That's not the time for sightseeing. That was very smart of you.
@onrealityofdreams I'd like to say it was smart, but it was really my inner guidance that told me to get down on the ground and start crawling toward the railing. The draw to not do that was overwhelming, but I just stayed focused and got out of there, never to return to that side of the railing ever again!
