Hiking Fall Creek Falls

Our second in a string of waterfall hikes on Monday was Fall Creek Falls, a bit further up the north fork of the Umpqua River from Susan Creek Falls. Like Susan Creek it's a small tributary in a side canyon. Unlike Susan Creek, the trail into it does not rise gently.



Fall Creek Canyon starts off narrow, steep, and choked with large boulders that appear to be columnar basalt formations.The trail rises once again through landscape that was burned a few years ago. Here most of the trees were savaged and will not recover, but the undergrowth (which is now not really under anything) is thriving.

This trail made us work for our payoff a lot more than Susan Creek did. That said, we didn't mind the steepness. The burned forest had an otherworldly beauty to it. And Fall Creek tumbles over a number of smaller cascades as it drops down the steep canyon. Once over the initial climb the trail levels out for a bit, then the prize comes into view: a three-tiered waterfall dropping over 100 feet.



The trail leads initially to the bottom of the falls. There, there's a flat spot and a shallow pool some people opt to take a plunge in (see below). The trail also continues up the side of the canyon wall, to the wood railed viewpoint you can see about 3/4 up the side on the right, and then to a fire road above the falls.



We started with the pool at the bottom of the falls, enjoying the view here along with the refreshing spray of the water.



We climbed the trail switchbacks to the higher viewpoint. Here there's a great view of the upper tier of the falls.

It's not visible from this angle but there's a concrete bridge over the creek further upstream from these falls. Trail signs indicate it's a forest road, so likely not paved other than the bridge itself, and the trail ends at it. We decided not to go that far. Why not explore? Because we had a long itinerary of other waterfalls still to see!



As we came back down from the upper viewpoint we stopped again at the bottom of the falls. They'd become more crowded while we were above, with about 10 people clustered at the base taking poor pictures. (I knew their pictures were poor because I saw the cameras and the angles they were using. And when I asked one of them to take a picture of us with my camera, the composition was poor.) I patiently waited for them to step out of frame to capture photos like the one above. Then it was down the canyon and on to our next adventure!

Toketee Falls and Carwash

After our treks at Susan Creek Falls and Fall Creek Falls Monday morning, plus over 100 miles of driving, it was getting to be time for lunch. We found a little gas station convenience store perfectly located in Steamboat, about a dozen miles before Toketee Falls, our next hiking spot. While there I learned that I was pronouncing Toketee wrong. It's not "toe-KEE-tee" but "TOKE-uh-tee". It's a Chinook word meaning pretty or graceful.

So, do the falls live up to the name? It was a short hike, less than 0.5 mile each way, to find out.



Pretty? Hell yeah. But graceful? More like thunderous. There is a lot of water coming over these falls. And this is only, like, half the flow (see below).

The falls feature a 30' drop in two steps in the upper part of the gorge then a drop of 80' into the wide pool at the bottom. The water cuts through a chasm in columnar basalt rock. We saw some of that over at Fall Creek Canyon, too.

I mentioned that this is only half the flow. Where's the other half? Would you believe... an unintentional carwash?

Watch on YouTube

At the trailhead parking area there is a huge diversion pipe. It's 12' diameter (in my voice-over narration I estimated 10') and made of wood. It's got a lot of leaks going. People were taking turns driving through the sprays as a free carwash.

This pipe is a penstock, diverting water from Toketee Lake just upstream to a hydroelectric power plant further downstream. Only a 1,500' length of the wooden pipe, built in 1949, remains. The rest has been replaced with a concrete tube.