Name of Waterfall

Frog Falls

GPS Coordinates (Approximate)

9523VGVC+X9

Location

9523VGVC+X9

Description

Follow the Trans-Canada Highway 3km west of the Three Valley Gap Resort and turn left (south) onto the unmarked Three Valley - Mabel Lake FSR. Follow this sometimes bumpy gravel road for 6km to the signed Frog Falls Recreation Site. Take the left fork in the road to the Rec site (the right leads to the camping area) and park near what looks like a shuttered mine shaft - really an access hatch to the underground hydroelectric facility. An overgrown road to the left of the hatch leads to the top of the falls and a rough trail from the end of the road to the right of the hatch leads up the side of the canyon to several other views, connecting with the road at the top of the falls.Frog Falls is a boisterous waterfall found along Wap Creek in the Three Valley Gap area. The falls plunge and chute 77 feet down a heavily fractured cliff face, then plunge over an additional 9 foot drop which is difficult to see due to the shape of the gorge. During the height of spring melt it appears that a second segment may appear about 100 feet to the right of the main part of the falls, though how much water may find that channel is not known.
Present at the falls is a small hydroelectric facility that provides power to the community of Three Valley Gap. While it would have been nice for the small low-head dam at the immediate top of the falls to have been situated further upstream to minimize the visual impact, this facility is practically a textbook example of a Run of River hydro facility done right.It appears as if the falls were originally named for the creek, captioned simply as "Wap Falls" on historical photographs dating from the 1850s. The origin of the current name is not known.

Other Names

['Wap Falls']

Magnitude

49.45

IWC Rating (International Waterfall Classification)

2.31

Total Height (ft)

86

Tallest Drop

77

Number of Drops

2

Average Width

20

Maximum Width

50

Average High Volume (Cubic ft per second)

150 cfs (8 months)

Average Low Volume (Cubic ft per second)

75 cfs (4 months)

Pitch

85 degrees

Run (ft)

20

Watershed or Feeder Stream

Fraser River Wap Creek