Lower Dry Creek Falls

Dry Creek is a stream of modest size which drops rather precipitously from a hanging valley above the Cowlitz River to join with the much broader river plain near the town of Packwood. While there are almost certainly several waterfalls along the length of Dry Creek, the only one we have thus far been able to confirm the existence of is this scenic 41-foot veiling fall found a short distance upstream from the obscure Dry Creek Trail, tucked in a narrow alcove flanked by nearly 150-foot tall cliffs. The topography of the gorge at the falls seems to function as a natural choke point for logs which fall from the slopes above, as a large log jam has accumulated at the base of the falls. Enough material has filled in behind the logs that the pool at the base of the falls appears to have risen a good 10-feet above the bedrock formation along the streambed, thus submerging the very bottom of the falls. Should these logs ever blow out, the falls may conceivably increase in height. The Gifford Pinchot National Forest has marked the falls with a generic tick mark on at least one of its maps published over the years, however never by name and not at all consistently across revisions over time. The falls were likely first marked due to its proximity to the Dry Creek Trail (it may actually be partially visible further up the trail - we did not investigate), or at least its proximity to the bridge which crosses Dry Creek downstream.We have not been able to uncover any record of historic or colloquial names applied to this waterfall, so for the time being we're calling it after the creek. We opted for the Lower prefix because of the almost certainty of more (and likely significantly larger) waterfalls to be found upstream).