Leon Turnbull Photography

No words. You can try to prepare yourself for such astounding beauty. Read books. Look at pictures. Eat donuts. Whatever you do, you will undoubtedly fall far short. Of course I had seen countless photos of Abiqua Falls. I knew it was an incredible waterfall. Duh. This is why it has been on my list to visit for many years now. I am sure everyone and their cat has been here before me. I got the chance this year. When I finally arrived at the falls I was truly overwhelmed. A drop dead gorgeous plummet of 89 feet (measured) off a colorful basalt cliff into a glorious deep, green pool. And the surroundings? Glorious. It is located in a spectacular amphitheater, with magnificent columnar basalt, bright reddish colored lichen on the cliff walls. I have seen well over 600 hundred waterfalls in my long life but Abiqua Falls ranks very near the top of the list of the most beautiful falls I have seen. Just my opinion of course. You may not think it so great. In fact, I am lying. It is not worth your while to come here. It’s not that good. Wink wink.

I do wish I could have brought my family here. I thought of going back to the motel in Salem and bringing them back. It would have been a bit tough for the kids due to the steepness of the hike but they could have done it. The problem though is we would have had to leave our old dog in the car cuz she would not have been able to do the hike. She would be so sad. And it was going to be a hot day. Not good. Actually it would have been stupid to leave her in the car. Plus we needed to get over to the coast anyway and get to our campground. We would not want to miss out on that now would we? It was so much cooler over there. I’ll just have to bring them here another time. I won’t mind coming back here. Really.

I arrived at the trailhead early in the morning. The hike down is not that bad, really. It was easier than I thought it would be. There are some steep sections as I said but there are ropes to help you get down. Once at the creek it is very easy to follow the path up to the waterfall. It was incredible to be at the waterfall all by myself. No one else around. Just me, myself and God enjoying the incredible beauty of it all. I spent quite awhile here, photographing the waterfall from all possible angles, and then some, including crossing the cold creek and actually standing in prior mentioned cold creek (for this shot). Finally I reluctantly packed up my gear and headed back up the hill to the car. It was a great morning indeed.

On a side note, I measured the plunge’s beautiful-ness to be 89 feet high. Certain wild and crazy kayakers of whom have made the sheer plummet (literally) from top to bottom apparently measured the drop to be 101 ft high. Now everyone and their cat thinks Abiqua Falls is 101 ft high. It is not 101 ft high. For confirmation of this I cite Bryan Swan’s measurement of 92 ft (waterfallsnorthwest.com). Since his and my measurement are so incredibly close, it is thus most very likely that the true height of the waterfall is somewhere between 89 and 92 ft and the third figure (101 ft) is incorrect. Of course I could be wrong. I don’t think so. What’s 12 feet difference anyway? Not much (unless you are a kayaker).