Kitsap Waterfall Survey: "Downfall Creek"

"Downfall Creek" is the working name I have for the small creek that drops off the southwest side of Gold Mountain in the Blue Hills before emptying into Mission Lake. The creek is broken up into two main sections: The dividing line between these sections is a logging road located several hundred feet up the side of Gold Moutain which crosses the creek at an elevation of about 930 feet. Or 360 vertical feet above Mission Lake.

The lower section of the creek, which drops from the above-mentioned logging road down to Mission Lake, is probably permanent; during extremely dry seasons it may run dry, but based on the appearance of the canyon and the stream, it flows to some degree year round. Here the creek has incised a deep canyon has it flows down the hillside. In places this canyon is over 90 feet deep. The walls are covered in forest debris and thick stands of brush, making travel arduous and tricky.

Above the logging road, the creek forks into two smaller segments, it is unlikely that either of these are permanent. Despite this, there are reports of a 15' tall cascade somewhere along this section, at least when water is flowing.

My hiking partner and I surveyed the Lower Section of the creek on November 18. We started up the old logging road that headed into the clearcut, then cut cross-country and went into the canyon. Within moments of entering the canyon, we stumbled across a small, cascade, which almost didn't warrant a second glance from me. Then when my partner stood next to it. It became apparent the cascade just barely met the height requirement for my survey if you combined the two tiers, which were about 15 feet apart. The upper tier is a four foot plunge, while the lower tier is a six foot cascade twisting through a blocky chunk of basalt bedrock. For it's twisting appearance, I named this cascade "Corkscrew Cascade."

"Corkscrew Cascade" 

Moving up the creek, thick brush and extremely steep slopes forced us to cross the creek and scramble up to the rim of the canyon where we were assaulted by waist high brush and and unstable ground. Moving cautiously, we crested a rise, and my friend called out to me, pointing upstream. Looking towards where he was pointing, suddenly I saw it. Above us, and several hundred feet away, a streak of whitewater could be seen pouring over a rock face, disappearing from view into the canyon. We rapidly made our way to the fall, and scored.

Almost exactly halfway up the canyon, "Downfall Creek" drops over a 56 foot tiered waterfall. The fall begins with a six foot slide, where the creek gathers momentum before it rockets over a fifteen foot plunge into a narrow alcove which houses a shallow small plunge pool. Immediately following this plunge, the creek continues to cascade at least another 30-40 feet down to the bottom of the canyon below.

Looking over the brink of "Midway Falls" 

Continuing up the canyon, we travelled along the rim, having crossed the creek a second time. Several hundred feet above "Midway Falls," We viewed another waterfall. This fall is probably comparable in size to "Midway" but due to the amount of deadfall and debris impairing views of the creek and the falls it was hard to tell. I did observe one tier that appeared to be about 10-15 feet, high, and then a long series of steep cascades below that. Since I only viewed this fall from a distance and have not been able to accurately observe it up close it remains confirmed, but not surveyed on my digital map.

"Midway Falls" With hiking partner Spencer. 

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.