Location Taken: Multnomah Falls, Oregon
Time Taken: June 2008
This is Multnomah Falls, one of the tallest falls in the United States!
Or not.
It used to be listed as one of the tallest falls, back when such lists first became popular, but that was just lazy research. Didn’t stop them from putting a sign up by the falls listing it as the second tallest in the USA. But if you go to the World Waterfall Database (and did you know THAT existed?), and look at their list of Tallest US Waterfalls, Multnomah isn’t in the top 10. Or even the top 100. It’s on the fourth page of that list, and near the bottom too. And each page has 35 entries, if you want to do the math.
Heck, on that list, even Yosemite Falls is downgraded. And that one does still make the occasional top ten highest waterfalls list, but is sixth on the World Waterfall Database. It still rightly makes a lot of the ten most awesome waterfalls lists, but it’s not the top in height in the US.
That honor goes to a small cascade of water known as Olo’upena Falls that just happens to go down the tallest sea cliffs in the world on Molokai Island in Hawaii. Those formed when the volcanic island literally sheared in half, creating a massive landslide that left the massive vertical cliffs that are around today – and even then, the modern cliffs are nicely eroded. This is actually pretty common in the Hawaiian islands. The Hawaiian hotspot volcanoes produce a rock that erodes rather easily, and shears off quite nicely. All eight islands in the chain have massive underwater landslide debris fields associated with them, which is probably the reason there are only eight islands left in this chain – the remnants of past islands go back to the edge of the Pacific Plate that the hotspot is currently in the center of, with only a tiny fraction of the islands managing to stay above water.
Still, Olo’upena Falls has one major problem: it’s tough to go see. Yosemite Falls and Multnomah Falls are much easier to reach. One’s in a major National Park, and the other is literally just off the highway going through the Columbia Gorge.
Which is why Multnomah has well established paths, including this bridge, and a gift shop and restaurant and all the other standard tourist trap features. It’s really easy to just pull over on your drive, see the waterfall, and maybe grab a bite to eat or a souvenir while you’re there. And a lot of people do so.
