Kitsap Waterfall Survey: Making breakthroughs and finding traction.

This week two large things happened involving the Kitsap Waterfall Survey that I felt the need to write about. The first being that three of the waterfalls on Dickerson Creek have made it onto the Northwest Waterfall Survey  and the World Waterfall Database. While obviously not standing in the spotlight out of the thousands of falls logged in those sites, just seeing Kitsap County on the map gives me a profound sense of accomplishment. And part of the whole reason that this survey was started was to help "fill in the blank" that was Kitsap County, so I guess you can say that was a success. The man in charge of the Pacific Northwest Waterfall Survey has also told me "Tin Mine Falls" is on the cue to be added to the two databases as well. How exciting!!!

Largest Tier of "Tin Mine Falls," on Tin Mine Creek.
Photo by Micah K. 

The second item of the week is a discovery of mine that can help move this survey along incredibly. It is a fish habitat report for the entirety of the Kitsap Peninsula, included in this report are detailed maps of different sections of Kitsap County, these maps show streams, rivermiles, logjams, beaver dams, manmade dams, and most importantly; Cascades and Waterfalls!. I was not expecting the sheer goldmine this report was. Not only has it marked these water features, but it has also color coded the cascades and waterfalls that are impassable to fish, allowing me to pinpoint where I want to investigate. Now as exciting as this find is, I am almost certain more than half of these "impassable cascades" could be ephemeral, small streams or possibly even dry watercourses that would be nowhere close to meeting the criteria of my survey. Still this is an amazing jump pad to future investigations, and should be a huge help in my continuing search for waterfalls in Kitsap.