Tuesday, 23 Feb, 2016
The big falls at Towell Falls.
One day last summer I was buzzing around the Channeled Scablands of Eastern Washington with my friend, Leah and we came across a waterfall I'd never seen before.
I actually spend a lot of time in the air over the scablands and have seen most of them that are near the Palouse, but I hadn't really spent the time to understand what I was seeing. Well, those falls kinda got under my skin. Sorry I don't have a picture of them from the air, but seeing any waterfall in that part of the dessert at that time of year was unusual.
I placed that thought on the back burner and in the meantime I'm wanting to take up hiking as a hobby. So I went down to Hyperspud sports and got a couple books on hiking Idaho. Unfortunately, most of the Idaho trails I want to do (Seven Devils, Selway River, etc) say May or June to November. Bummer. I've been building up my walking mileage around town, often getting 10 miles a day, and I don't want to wait til June. So then I found this book at Hyperspud:
With this book I found a treasure trove of trails that are near their best in February and March, and I also found Towell Falls on Rock Creek. For that was the waterfall I had seen from the air, and it turns out to be on BLM land as part of the Escure Ranch Recreation Area, Hike #8.
Here's how to get there from Moscow. Just two hours and only the last half hour is on dirt roads. You will notice that the closest thing to this place is Benge, which is smack dab in the middle of nowhere. If you ever want to see the end of the world, go to Benge.
This is (or was) the bank in Winona, a next to non-existent town right at the end of the Palouse and the beginning of the scablands. It is one of four defunct downtown buildings.
You turn off pavement and onto this dirt road shortly after Winona, it's actually a beatiful drive and the road, though gravel, is actually quite good. It winds beautifully through basalt mesas, basically the only way the road could get through here.
Then you turn onto the entry road for the Escure Ranch, and there is this, more suited to a 4wd that the Mazda 3 I was driving. Lots of water holes in the road, often all the way across. But I made it ok.
Here's the old cattle/sheep ranch as viewed from the parking area. There are two published hiking trails here. One is the Towell Falls out-and-back that I walked this day, and the other is Turtle Lake Loop, which I will have to try on another day. I don't have my mileage up that far yet.
Here's the trail. You can see that it follows Rock Creek where it can, but then goes up over the back of a large basalt outcrop because the creek runs right up against the basalt cliff, leaving no room for a trail.
Here is the start of the trail looking south. It's very reminiscent of Monument Valley, but smaller in scale, and much closer. I've never been to Monument Valley, but I can't imagine it being better than this, having all this terrain right up close, towering over me. I loved it!
At that early morning and season, I couldn't really see the first cliff until I got close enough for the sun to go behind it. Kind of a sudden shock to see this 150 ft cliff right next to me all of a sudden.
Same cliff less than a half mile beyond. The previous pic is under the shadow on the left side of the left one. My grin can be interpreted as "It's Tuesday morning and I'm not in a cubicle!" or "Can you believe this? I'm finally getting out and doing something besides house projects!"
It's an easy hike on a 4wd trail. Only 3 miles.
The monuments across on the west side of the valley.
Climbing over the back of the basalt cliff which the creek hugs too tightly on the right. There are trails over the top of this rock, but I stayed on the path, which goes through a bumpy little valley right under 60 ft cliffs on the right ahead.
The big falls, from a half mile away.
There are actually 3 falls at Towell Falls that surround a small island. I only saw the big falls from the air, but a google recon of the area made me think to bring some rubber boots. I can't ford the entirety of Rock Creek -- too deep and fast -- but I might could wade across the north channel to the island to get a close look at the big falls.
Anyhow. There are two smaller, taller waterfalls into the U-shaped hole that is the creek in the upper half of the above picture. One is at the base of the U, and the other is on the lower side of the U. The big fall is clearly seen in the Google satalite image on the south side of the island.
Here is the upper falls on the small channel on the north side of the island. The falls are about 12 ft high and this seems like an excellent swimming hole, except it might be hard to climb out of. And here is a video:
http://youtu.be/wDieJvsZUsA
I sat here, above the upper falls, eating my lunch of a slab of ham sandwich and Oreos and contemplating the universe (note to self: remember the box of wine next time).
Even on the small channel, it took a bit of courage and searching to find a place to ford the stream that would not overtop my rubber boots.
I finally got across without dunking my phone/camera. Here is the smaller falls on the side of the upper channel.
An elk/deer hang out on the island near the big falls. Evidently, this tree is tasty.
After about an hour hanging around the falls I headed back. The views are better with the sun now behind me.
Rock Creek. Which flows out of Rock Lake. I'll tell you a story about that another time.
Massive basalt cliffs carved out by the ice age Missoula floods. Look 'em up. That's how all these scablands got here.
The ranch house, with windows and doors now protected by metal screens.
The pre-history of the place. Can you read that?
Escure Ranch history, part II.
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