April 10th, 2008:
Website is still coming, but much more importantly and worthy of my bitching and your listening is that Topozone, one of the best mapping resources to have ever graced the internet, has been bought out by trails.com and taken offline in the sense that we're all familiar with. Those of you who are not familiar with trails.com, the premise of the site is they basically scan every hiking guidebook ever produced, PDF it and charge you a subscription fee to access it. Not a bad concept per say, except the subscription is a bit steep, you're limited in how many books you can access per month, search engine queries for geologic features often return TONS of "false positives" from their site that throws off the legitimacy of the search results and, best of all, MOST OF THE CONTENT ON THEIR SITE IS AVAILABLE FREE ELSEWHERE! So now, they've bought out the one really fantastic mapping website for North America, dumbed it down to the extreme sense, REMOVED ALL THE MAPS OF CANADA COMPLETELY and clumped it in with their subscription service and charge you upwards of $50 a year to access what had previously been free.
In response to this action, I am calling for a complete boycott of trails.com. Do not visit the topozone URL any longer, do not click on any links in search results from ANY search engine, cancel your subscription if you have one and sway others from joining if you have any influence. I have removed all former links to topozone.com from my website and will not be using them as a mapping resource in the future. Topo maps of the United States can still be found on Terraserver for those of you who would like access.
February 1st, 2008:
Another one bites the dust. I was just contacted by the Land Manager for the White River Tree Farm and informed that public access to Boise Creek Falls is no longer permitted due to "safety issues". Having been to Boise Creek Falls twice and having seen ZERO indication that this area was abnormally dangerous, I have no idea what their ulterior motive was for closing access to the falls - could be nearby logging, blasting, or just excessive liability concerns. Regardless, the falls are now unfortunately closed to the public.
Right now we're sitting on what may end up being a record setting winter snowpack in the Cascades, which ensures a waterfall season of epic proportions - especially if we get that long indian summer this year that we were so rudely denied in 2007. This, of course, has a downside as well. So far this winter I've been waterfall hunting once and only with tepid pleasure. Hopefully February will bring warmer temperatures in the lower elevations so at least some local waterfalls can be hunted down.
Lastly, I've cleared a major hurdle in the construction of the new website and now its largely down to the final programming and design of a few pages. I know I've laid out launch dates before and they always fall through, but I'm gonna do it again, hopefully with more certainty this time. So for now, the targetted launch is April 1st at the latest (this may be dependant on my workload however, because paying contracts come first). So check back in the next several weeks to see if all has been greenlit.
June 2nd, 2007:
No new content at this time, but two things to report. First of all, I am still here and the site is not going away. Between work and going hiking and waterfall hunting almost every weekend, I have found little time to work on the new site, but rest assured, it is coming and there will be so much new stuff, you all won't care if I didn't add anything else for a whole nother year.
Now, more importantly, more and more information is pouring in regarding trail damage from the epic floods back in November 2006. Most of this was, I'm sure most of you are aware, was centered around Mount Rainier National Park. The Park Service is doing a great job updating the conditions and working on fixes, but there is so much damage that it will likely take years before its all repaired. So far, the reports indicate that pretty much all the major bridges around the park were washed out.
The bridges are out at Silver Falls, Ohanapecosh Falls, Ollalie Creek Falls, Lower Stevens Creek Falls and Martha Falls among many, many others (frequently updated map showing damage is available here). If you plan on visiting the park, remember that the only areas that will be accessible this year are Paradise via the Nisqually entrance, Ohanapecosh via Highway 12, Mowich Lake and Sunrise and Chinook Pass via 410. This renders well over half of the easily accessed waterfalls in the park inaccessible for the season. Check with the Park Service for current conditions.
July 26th, 2006:
Not surprisingly, we've had more issues with our host - namely the World Waterfall Database redirecting to this site. We're trying to get the old URL released from the current state, but the support guys are being really hard to get a hold of for some reason. So, we've registered a new domain - please update your links to the World Waterfall Database to point to http://www.worldwaterfalldatabase.com. The old URL will stay active and eventually will be transfered back to the correct website. In other news, in addition to the two dozen or so waterfalls I still have to update from this spring, I now have 100 +/- waterfalls that need updating in Canada. Because this site will be updated extensively some time this winter, I plan on splitting off the Canadian waterfalls to their own site, and will likely be online and available sooner than the rebuild of the US stuff. It may take a few months, but it'll be worth the wait. Some of the pictures from said trip will be available on WWD within a month or so.
June 27th, 2006:
Yes, I am still here. Yes, I have a buttload of new stuff to add to the site.
I haven't added anything up to this point because I was waiting for my webhost
to move this site to their new servers. The process was initiated two weeks
ago, and hasn't budged since, so to hell with them, and lets get this started.
I've lost access to my method of batch updating, so I'll be doing this by hand,
one at a time over the next several days. For now, we're starting with the entries
from my late February trip to the Oregon Coast and my May trip to the Columbia
Gorge. Check the Updates page to see what has been added.
ALSO, please contact your congressmen about the imending vote on the Net Neutrality Bills. This has the potential to change the nature of the internet forever.
April 30th, 2006:
Okay, so this is whats going on. My whole "this site might not continue" bit was originally supposed to be a big April Fools joke, but it sort of carried on and on and I kept pushing it back and back. I never had any intention of closing down the site, so rest assured, nothing is going away. Far from it, actually. I'm currently working on my annual re-design, which is taking way way WAY longer than I originally anticipated, which is why I'm getting this out in the open. So, rather than let the site stagnate while I worked on the new databases - which will feature a total of over 4000 waterfalls when all is said and done (I'm hoping to have the first phase online by mid June) - right now I'm whipping up the information for my last two big trips down to Oregon and I'll have a big ol' pile of new stuff posted in the next couple weeks while I wait for the Cascades to melt out from our excellent winter. This summer is shaping up to be one of the best waterfalling years in the last decade, but right now, its just a matter of waiting for the lower elevations to melt out and the Forest Service to get the roads in drivable condition. More soon.
April 4th, 2006:
Rather than let this site stagnate, I opted to add a few new pictures from a
day trip to the north side of Olympic National Park last week. The falls were
flowing quite nicely, and I was able to get back to both Sol Duc Falls and Wolf
Creek Falls - neither of which I had been to in at least 10 years. I have a
huge batch of photos from my recent Oregon trip to sort through, but it may
take me some time before I get any of those online.
In other local news, our snowpack this year has ended up being quite a bit more
substantial than I originally thought it would be. Many places are reporting
as much as 110-130 percent of normal. Snow was seen at Sol Duc Hot Springs at
an elevation of 2000 feet on the weekend of March 25th, and many trails usually
accessible in the winter are either blocked by snow on roads or snow on trails.
Its going to be a very good season for waterfall hunting, but not a terribly
good hiking season (short).
February 18th, 2006:
With the holidays come and gone, I've finally had some time to get out and enjoy
the deliciously wet winter we've been overdue for here in the Northwest. As
has been the case for quite a while, I've been backlogged with doing anything
to this website, but I finally got enough free time together to add a few falls
from the last couple months. Principally, Olney and Boise Creek Falls have been
crossed off my 'winter to-do list' once and for all.
Not much else to report on right now. Got several trips planned for the year,
the most ambitious being a four day excursion to the great blackhole that is
the Wallowa Mountains and a week long orgy of picture taking in the Canadian
Rockies. Some shorter Oregon outings will probably take place within the next
month or so as well, and as bad as I have been at updating this site, keep watch
and I will at least post of the results.
November 14th, 2005:
I'm still here. Sort of. Been extremely busy recently and since I got back from
New England I hadn't had much of a chance to get out. I made it to North Fork
Falls at Cougar Mountain after some torrential rain, but forgot my tripod and
ended up running out of light anyway. Today I finally made it somewhere worth
while - finally bagged Cherry Creek Falls near Duvall. Nice drop, much better
than I expected for a waterfall so close to an urban area. I also added Mazama
Lake Falls, which I'd had sitting in backlog since before I went to New England.
In other news, I'm still not sure how I'm going to proceed with this website.
As you can see, it's been almost 2 months since the last update. Right now I'm
weighing my options on what to do with it. Going off line is not something I
want to do, but it remains a possibility. Whatever happens, a big change is
coming some time after Christmas, so be sure to keep tuned in to find out what
will happen.
September 18th, 2005:
A recent article written by noted Oregon outdoor guru William Sulliven and published
in the Eugene Register-Guard has brought to my attention the intentions of the
Forest Service to rename the two major waterfalls on Squaw Creek near the Three
Sisters in central Oregon. The word Squaw has been viewed by some as derogatory
towards Native Americans, so the Feds are trying to PC it up by "sanitizing"
the placenames. Lower Squaw Creek Falls has been targetted to be renamed to
"Chush Falls". Chush is a Sahaptin (Nez Perce) dialect word meaning "water".
Boring, I know, but I have no issues with the lack of creativity of the individuals
responsible for this name. What I do have a major problem with is the
suggested renaming of Squaw Creek Falls - the biggest, best and ONLY waterfall
in the area with a currently official name - to the generic "Upper Chush
Falls", simply because the forest service doesn't maintain the trail beyond
the lower falls. Myself and several fellow Oregon waterfall hunters have
contacted the Forest Service about this, and I have suggested that the upper
falls - should renaming take place - be changed to "Kaluwas Falls".
Kaluwas is a word meaning "rim of a basket" - much more appropriate
considering how the falls occur in a natural circular basin. Also, in
keeping with the Sahaptin form, I have changed the name for nearby Park Creek
Falls - one of the few in the area I couldn't previously come up with a good
name for - to Howlaak Falls. Howlaak is a word meaning "abyss".
More will be posted as this soap opera unfolds.
September 11th, 2005:
Slack. Slack. Slack. Man, August was a complete bust. After tangling with car
issues for almost an entire month, I finally got a few trips notched on my belt.
This time around we've got 18 new or updated entries, the breakdown is
as follows.
I was scheduled to make a run on the Green and Berdeen Lakes area during the
third week of August. The route I intended on taking turned out to be
exceptionally brushy, and I aborted. Upon my drive home, my radiator blew
out and I was suddenly out of commission for three weeks. However, a few
fellow hikers managed to make it into the area and have graciously provided
a few pictures of the mindblowing waterfalls in the area which I missed - which
include 850 foot Berdeen Falls and 960 foot Green Lake Falls.
After getting my car fixed, I made my second attempt on Sulphide Creek Falls,
what I suspect to be the most significant waterfall in the northwest.
The trip proved successful in documenting a few other - less significant - waterfalls
in the area, but Sulphide remains out of reach.
The first successful trip of the month, and my first overnighter of the entire
summer (sheesh) occured on the last weekend of August when I bagged the five
major waterfalls in the upper drainages of Lemah Creek near the Pacific Crest
Trail. Though the streamflow was quite low on two of the best falls, the
trip was highly successful and one I will be repeating earlier next year.
The final outing was a day-trip to Mount Rainier National Park to pound out
a few more front-country waterfalls that have remained elusive thus far.
The very rarely seen Maple Falls was inventoried, and a few others were revisited,
most not worthy of an update. At least one follow up trip will likely
occur before the end of September to tackle the large falls on Stevens Creek
below Highway 706, and quite likely, St Johns Falls. Beyond this, I have
a trip to New England planned in early October, and I don't know if I'll get
out much after that before the onset of Winter, so the seaon is clearly winding
down for me, and once the rains return, I'll begin focusing on the low land
waterfalls.
Lastly, this website may be in its last days. I've been quite busy recently,
and as you can see, I haven't been able to maintain it over the last month to
the level I'd like. I expect by this winter, I will have to take the site
down permenantly should my work schedule not improve. I may replace it
with something simple, but I can't say yet. Will keep everybody posted.
July 10th, 2005:
Got the pictures and info for Keekwulee and Snowshoe Falls updated and online.
I'm not going to add pages for the three additional falls along Denny Creek
that I confirmed at this point, because I have some restructuring planned in
the future, and I've got probably 1,000 more waterfalls that will get added
to the database at that point (don't hold your breath, it won't be until this
winter).
July 7th, 2005:
Yes, you've waited patiently for over a month now and the wait is over. Big
update time. This batch is from a four day pillage in central Oregon, from Bend
to Willamette Pass and all points in between. The update contains 47 updates,
43 of which have new pictures. Of those waterfalls, 37 - which I believe may
be a record for three days - I had never visited before, a handful of which
may have never been photographed before even (not likely, but there is a possibility).
I also hiked to Keekwulee and Snowshoe Falls along Denny Creek this last weekend,
and I'll have the info and pictures for those two falls up by the weekend. Beyond
that, I don't have any idea what is next. I'm planning on camping in two weeks,
don't know where yet, then at the end of the month, I'll be going after the
big falls in the headwaters of the Bacon Creek drainage - which may be a little
more tentative than I'd like at the moment, but I'll get in there somehow. Other
than that, expect some scattered Mt Rainier updates in the next few months.
Lastly, I'm starting the conceptual phase of the next major update to the website,
so if any of you have any suggestions to what I could do better, please let
me know asap. Until next time.
June 5th, 2005:
Alright, May Mount Rainier pillage Vol.2. Second trip happend last weekend,
during the bizarre heatwave. Needless to say the water was running hard, heavy
and high. The two main goals were established quite easily - being Teeley Falls
and Tatoosh Falls. We've got new or updated pictures and information for 10
waterfalls this time around. Dunno if I'll get out in the next two weeks, but
Mid-June will be the second big Oregon trip of the year (likely the last), and
that will yield some gooooood results.
May 27th, 2005:
Look at this. Two updates in one month. Boy are you guys getting spoiled. Anyway,
got the first of two consecutive Mount Rainier outing online, the second will
take place this Saturday to clean up what I got rained out of last weekend.
Updated pics and infor for 13 waterfalls this go-round. I also finally got around
to adding a FAQ page, which addresses issues that many
visitors have had with images not displaying correctly. More updates soon.
May 14th, 2005:
Yes, it's been a while since I last updated. Chalk it up to a bad work schedule
and the fact that I spent the last week moving to a new place. I did manage
to get out prior to the move, however, and that stuff has now been added. The
trip included revists to Feature Show, Asbestos Creek, Huckleberry and Hilt
Creek Falls, among others, as well as bagging one of my nemesis waterfall, Asbestos
Falls.
I've also just picked up a copy of the Idaho Topo! software, so I'll be adding
lots more information on the waterfalls in Idaho over the next several months
(probably several new falls as well). Now that I'm settled in to my new place,
I'll be getting out with more regularity. Next weekend, I'm planning on making
a run down to Mt. Rainier National Park to hit some of the more seasonal stuff
while there is still snow. Stay tuned as always.
March 29th, 2005:
Last weekend I logged my first big trip of the year down in the Santiam River
drainage of Oregon. Visited a total of 36 waterfalls. New pictures and / or
new entries are available for 31 waterfalls, the others have been selectively
added or left out for now. I've also added a bunch of new falls to the
database with a little information, largely in southern Washington. For
those of you keeping score, this puts me about 25 entries short of 3000 waterfalls
in the database.
Several trips are in the works, but it looks like Winter has decided to actually
make an appearnce after all, and its been snowing rather considerably in the
mountains recently, so I may be forced to the lowlands for a while. Next
big trip is going to include Asbestos Creek Falls and Shelf Lake Falls.
My second Oregon trip is planned for June, when four biggies - Rider Creek,
Proxy, Linton and Squaw Creek - are on the hit list. Stay tuned as always.
March 6th, 2005:
Bleh, I gotta do a better job at remembering to do this when I add new stuff.
Anyway, I added 3/4 of a write up for Laughing Jacob's Falls last weekend, and
I did Explorer Falls yesterday under beautiful weather...which ended up all
but destroying my pictures. Thank GOD for Photoshop.
February 14th, 2005:
Added four new waterfalls along the east slopes of the Olympics, and a new picture
for Rocky Brook Falls. Good falls, but damn, I got wet finding them. Hiking
in the rain sucks. Nevermind the fact that I CHOSE to go on the rainy day, rather
than the clear, dry, sunny days on either side.
AS OF APRIL 4th, 2006:
Because of the recent eruptions of Mount Saint Helens, the Forest Service has
closed several areas around the mountain. THE FOLLOWING WATERFALLS ARE
CURRENTLY INACCESSIBLE DUE TO THE ERUPTION ACTIVITY (all located within the
Gifford Pinchot Region):
June Lake Falls, Chocolate Falls, All waterfalls in Sheep Canyon, Loowit Falls,
Harmony Falls, and Ape Canyon Falls.
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