Shoshone Falls

Five years ago, I paddled up to the base of Shoshone Falls in a kayak (hshipman: June 2012). But I never got up to the viewpoint to see them from above. This trip offered the chance to do that and I thought M find them sort of neat, too. Flows were incredibly low, even lower than my earlier visit, and a trickle compared to full flood conditions.

Shoshone Falls is a little over 200' high - more than Niagara -- although even at high flow it can't really compare in volume. But in terms of some combination of height and volume, it must be among the largest in the American West.  Celilo Falls on the Columbia (now drowned behind the Dalles Dam) had huge flows, but was no where near as high. The Great Falls of the Missouri may have been impressive, but weren't of this scale. Willamette Falls near Portland and Kootenai Falls in Montana are larger in terms of average volume, but again, not as high. The kayaks below the falls provide some sense of scale.