From the Fort Worth Star-Telgram:
“Take off your hat!” a tour guide yelled as I clung to my pink ball cap and climbed the steps cautiously to the water-soaked platform above.
“What????”
No way could I hear him over the deafening deluge of water falling just 15 feet away.
“Take! Off! Your! Hat!”
My boyfriend, Mike, rushed over and pulled the hat from my head before the wind and water could push it to the watery abyss below.
Vanity is not an option when you’re in the belly of Bridal Veil Falls, approaching the “Hurricane Deck” — so named because the water rushing by creates tropical storm conditions.
This is the pinnacle of the popular Cave of the Winds tour, and it’s about as close as anyone gets to being on one of Niagara’s three waterfalls without going over in a barrel. It’s wet, it’s windy, it’s messy, it’s scary, and it transforms Niagara Falls from a pretty scene in paintings to the primal, living, dangerous natural wonder that it is.
It was barely 4 p.m., and this was the third time that day we’d gotten a good Niagara drenching — soaked to the bone, water up our noses, contact lenses stinging and good hair day ruined.
That was the plan.