Leon Turnbull Photography

So … this was a killer tough hike … but very awesome.

Going back into that nefarious canyon (you know the one – see my previous post Thorn In My Side) before it is closed off for winter, I have wanted to try to get down to this spot for awhile now, but I knew it would be tough. I had to give it a shot.

The descent is about 1200 ft. in less than a mile. If that doesn’t give you the willies, I don’t know what will. Oh perhaps the cliffs will. Yeah we had some of those.

It was actually more than 1200 ft. too, because I took a couple detours. The first detour was to Burnett Canyon. I was 95 percent sure that I would not be able to get to this one. Nonetheless, I had to try, right? And yeah I got down to the top of the falls, but then it was nothing but cliff. No way to get any further along to see the waterfall. Not even a small view of it. Well that was not unexpected, was it, so I scrambled back up the mountain. That detour was probably a couple hundred feet extra.

There is a rope descending down the last 500 ft. to the bottom of the canyon. Believe me, you need to use it the entire way. It is incredibly steep and very difficult. I went down quite a distance. However, when I came to the section where the rope descends along the edge of a 200 ft. cliff dropoff with a very steep descent along the top of it, I balked. I am really freaked out about stuff like this. I like to live. So I thought, I will have to call it quits, and back up the mountain I went. That was probably another 250 ft. for that detour.

When I got back up to the top, I looked at my map. Perhaps there was another way down that was not so crazy. And yeah, actually, maybe there was. It was not too late, I thought I may as well try it. The descent was steep for sure, but it was not cliffy and I did not need my rope. Well I take that back. It did get cliffy near the bottom, and I did need to use my rope for a very short section. But definitely not a 500 ft. long section. I found a way through the cliffs, and got a glimpse of a couple waterfalls. I was giddy.

The first one I wanted to see was Lower Burnett Canyon, but when I finally got to the bottom , I found there was no way to get to that falls. The cliffs descended right to river level on both sides of the river. This was the one out of the three waterfalls that I thought for sure I would be able to see. Nothing doing. This was unexpected, and a bummer. But there was still the other one.

I know of only one other person who has been down here before. Clearly, with that rope being there, others obviously have been down. I have only seen one photo, though, and his photo made this waterfall seem to be very small, 10-15 ft. high at most. Google Earth also seems to think this waterfall is only 15 or so, maybe 20 ft. max. So really, this one was very low priority for me, and I did not even have it on my website, thinking it less than 20 ft. high. Does my photo make it seem this is a small waterfall as well? It is actually 51 ft. high, about 3 times higher than what I was anticipating, and it is a drop dead gorgeous straight drop into a magnificent plunge pool. Wow what an amazing waterfall. It was very unexpected.

I would love to come back here again, but I don’t know if I will, considering how difficult it was. I climbed 500 ft. back up the mountain, and nearly bonked. I still had another 700 ft. to climb too, but I rested, ate some lunch, and eventually got back up to my car. It was an amazing day in that nefarious canyon.