Bird Woman Falls

Bird Woman Falls is a moderately well known attraction in Montana's Glacier National Park due to several prominent signs along the famous Going-to-the-Sun Road which point out the falls spilling out of the hanging valley between Mounts Oberlin and Cannon. The falls are not accessible up close without extensive bushwhacking, but even then appear significant. The signs along the road give the falls' height at 492 feet - or a very round 150 meters on the nose, which seems too coincidental to be accurate. As it happens, topographic and LiDAR data suggest it's much bigger and consists of two tiers rather than just the one - an upper drop of about 120 feet, followed by the larger main tier which drops about 640 feet, with the remaining difference of the 960-foot total drop from the top to bottom made up in cascades between the two tiers. As the falls are no longer fed by a permanent glacier (long since melted away) only the annual snow fall sustains the creek, and while Glacier National Park has a fairly wet climate, by late summer the volume of water running down these falls is greatly reduced from its spring levels - though enough snow seems to stay in the basin above to keep the falls flowing at a modest pace all year.