Eldon Falls

Eldon Falls is the final waterfall along the Hamma Hamma River before it enters Puget Sound. The falls are found at the head of a narrow canyon about 3-1/2 miles upstream from the mouth of the river. Downstream of the falls the gorge is fairly wide open, but at the falls the river plunges over back-to-back drops of 19 and 14 feet into an exceptionally narrow box canyon - perhaps 20 feet wide at most in places - with sheer cliffs rising straight out of the water on either side just below the falls. Around the top of the falls the river has sculpted the bedrock to form a number of small potholes. At one point in the early 1980's a hydroelectric project was proposed for the Hamma Hamma River and would have been situated just upstream of this waterfall and canyon. The project was never approved, however there seem to be relics of the potential development of the area scattered along the former road which would have presumably been used to access the site of the diversion dam. We first learned of this waterfall from a map produced by the US Army Corp of Engineers, and it seems like that it was marked due to the possibility of the dam being built at the time.