Leon Turnbull Photography

My rainy day started out looking for waterfalls on Monumental Creek. Instead I found this.

I learned about this location from the late Russell Towle, well off the beaten path, towering pinnacle rocks called the Monuments, from which the creek was most likely named. There are four or five of them in this area, and the largest one shown here in my photo is certainly over 100 feet high, rising right out of the creek bed; it is an amazingly phenomenal structure. I knew about these Monuments from Russell, but did not know exactly where they were. They were not hard to find even though it did require scrambling up a steep slope through very wet brush.

But I came looking for waterfalls, not monuments. Russell also mentioned several waterfalls on this creek. However, whenever someone says “waterfall” and does not mention any sort of height, I should know by now that the “waterfall” is not likely to be one of significance. Nonetheless, after studying my topo maps, I thought it was possible there might be a 20 footer on this creek, and thus I figured I must at least go check it out. I did not, in fact, find anything of significance. The biggest of the “waterfalls” was only about 5 feet, and you can see it in this photo, a tiny ant speck in the midst of the towering monuments. Even though it was raining quite hard, I had to take a photo of these incredible pinnacles. I continued from here further up the creek, but still found no waterfalls of any significance. Reluctantly, I retreated back down the canyon and headed up to North Fork Falls, just a few miles away.