CONTRIBUTE TO THE SURVEY

Yes, I need your help.  I've been running this site for over 10 years now, and its grown tremendously in that time.  But I can only do so much.  This isn't a paying job, and why people aren't lining up to throw money in my direction so I can do this full time, I honestly have no idea.  So, for now, I have to work to pay the bills and get out when I can.  Because of the way the Survey is designed, I need to visit each waterfall in order to properly measure it and assess its rating. 

However, you can help in several ways:

Any, and I mean ANY first, second or through-the-grapevine beta you can provide to me is extremely helpful.  Access issues, locations of waterfalls I'm not certain about or don't have listed at all, whether a particular waterfall dries out in the summer, whether its currently flooding, and especially any historical information pertaining to the discovery and naming of any waterfall would be much appreciated.

Currently the database does have requirements that a waterfall must meet in order to be entered.  This is simply because if we took every single waterfall, no matter how insignificant, how fleeting or ephemeral, in the northwest, then the data would simply be unmanageable to the count of hundreds of thousands of entries.  So, the current system follows the following requirements:

These requirements will be followed as broadly as possible, but certain exceptions may be made on a case by case basis.  For the purpose of definition, "Vague Knickpoint" and "Defined Knickpoint" are meant to be used to identify waterfalls which may or may not have a definitive top and bottom, usually when either preceeded or followed by steep cascades down jumbled boulders.

This database and website was designed with the ability to display user submitted pictures.  Its currently not in operation because some fine tuning still needs to be done, but the backbone of the future expandability is there.  So please, send me your pictures.  I can't guarantee I'll use them (I generally won't use pictures of waterfalls I've already visited unless mine really sucks and yours is awesome). Use the email address at the bottom of the page.  You don't have to ask before you send me pictures, just send them.  If you ask if I'd like to see them before, I'll generally ignore your email because I don't have time to reply to dozens like that every week.

Even if you can't go out hiking in the Northwest to explore these waterfalls yourself, there are ways you can still help:

The internet has revolutionized trip planning and with the advent of programs like Google Earth and Microsoft Virtual Earth / Live Search Maps, its becoming easier and easier to identify where a potential waterfall might be located.  Using the aformentioned programs, you can scour the imagery and actually see waterfalls where the images are of high enough resolution.  I spend lots of time doing this myself, but I'm sure there are several I've missed, so if you haven't yet, go download Google Earth and start looking for waterfalls in the Northwest (or all over the world, for that matter).

Flash Earth is another fantastic resource, that has combined the imagery of several online websites into one fantastically easy to use interface.  I've already found dozens of waterfalls using it that I had not previously known about.

The various image hosting sites out there like Webshots and Flickr are invaluable resources as well.  There are literally billions of pictures across the internet, and even one can do a great deal to help understand the size, nature and location of a waterfall.  Just seeing a picture can give me as much as half the data I need to properly give a waterfall a rating, so this is an immensely useful and incredibly easy thing that you can do to help.

If you find anything via these methods, shoot me an email, mentioning the location (Latitude and Longitude are just fine), send me a Google KML file and / or the web address (for Flash Earth), whatever works best for you.  The more you share, the bigger the database grows.

Lastly, you can donate via Paypal. I don't actively ask for donations, and since the webhosting really is fairly cheap, any money you donate will go into a fund used to take care of travel expenses (gas, lodging, food) while I'm out bagging the waterfalls that need to be bagged.  If you choose to do this, use the email address

"bryanswan (at) waterfallsnorthwest (dot) com"

without the quotes and replacing the parenteticals with the appropriate symbols of course.

Lastly, if you have any pertinent updates specific to any waterfalls already reviewed and rated on this site, please post a comment under the entry in question (but behave, I don't like spam and I won't tolerate trolling).  If the info is really relevant, I may end up rolling it right into the content.