Klahanie Falls

RATING - 50.0

VR - 8.0 (Big) HR - 4.0 SR - 18/20

TYPE OF APPROACH - Bushwhack

DIFFICULTY - Medium

LOCATION - Baker Lake Road

TYPE - Plunge

HEIGHT - 57'

WIDTH - 30'

GPS - N48 36.831 W121 44.037

ELEVATION - 590'

DIRECTIONS - Drive east on Hwy 20 and turn left onto Baker Lake Road just past the Baker Lake Store. Follow this road for about 9 miles until you cross Bear Creek (unsigned). Park at the 2nd of two pullouts on the right side and start walking up the road. In about 1/2 a mile the road will become undrivable in a meadowy area. Continue walking straight ahead to a wooden footbridge over a tributary of Bear Creek. In another few hundred feet you will see the dam and Laplash Falls. Continue following the vague path down the old roadbed for another 1/2 mile to where the falls can be seen and heard. (There are sort of two old roads, you want the one that runs closest to the creek.) There are several good views of the falls.

Bear Creek contains a plethora of waterfalls in its final mile and this is probably the best of the bunch and immediately became a favorite of mine. I named the falls Klahanie Falls (Klahanie is a Chinook word meaning "outdoors") but I wouldn't be surprised if it had another name given the powerhouse and the old road travelling right next to the falls. Bear Creek launches itself outward and lands in a huge pool, surrounded by vertical cliff walls on three sides. During the summer I suspect this would make an excellent swimming hole. It appears, from satellite images, that the falls become segmented in lower water levels with a plunging right hand segment and a fan shaped left hand segment. There are two nice views above the creek and once you get to the creek the possibilities are endless (provided the creek is low enough to move around without a wetsuit). I finally got a chance to visit the falls at low volume the other day and it is a completely different experience. It's very calm and relaxing, whereas normally it's a raging torrent of spray and sound.