Middle Cougar Creek Falls

RATING - 38.0

VR - 6.0 (Med) HR - 4.0 SR - 14/20

TYPE OF APPROACH - Bushwhack

DIFFICULTY - Fairly Difficult

LOCATION - Sloan Peak Trail

TYPE - Slide

HEIGHT - 79'

WIDTH - 8'

GPS - N48 04' 25.34" W121 19' 29.16"

ELEVATION - 3004'

DIRECTIONS - From Cougar Creek Falls, cross the creek and scramble down through the brush for a couple hundred feet to the base of this waterfall. Be very careful you don't slip and fall because a 200' cliff is waiting just downstream.

Of the three waterfalls on this section of Cougar Creek, this is sort of the red-headed step child of the bunch. Cougar Creek races through a bedrock sluice at a 45 degree angle for a total of 79' in height. When viewing the falls, it doesn't look nearly this high because of the angle it drops. The area is surrounded by lush greenery and were it not for a dried up old tree laying on the left side of the falls, this would be an almost flawless scene. While it's not nearly as impressive as its up and downstream brothers, it's still a very pretty little waterfall and if you make it to Cougar Creek Falls, it's not all that much more work to look at this one. Just be careful you don't slip over the lower falls while you're there.

A good case could be made that the three waterfalls of Cougar Creek should be considered one, multi-tiered waterfall. The entire formation is bedrock based for the entire run. I ended up splitting them up because there are noticeable flat steps between each waterfall in the group and they cannot be seen together. If you want to call it one 400' tall waterfall instead, be my guest.