Lower Hopkins Creek Falls

The lowermost waterfall along Hopkins Creek lies tucked just out of sight from the busy thoroughfare of the Cowlitz Valley, yet offers a surprisingly scenic and significant respite for those who seek it out. While topographic maps clearly mark a much larger waterfall short distance upstream, this waterfall has the fortuitous pleasure of grabbing all the attention due to its ease of access - provided you know where to look. Hopkins Creek produces the falls where it slides over two ledges back-to-back; first a 45-foot horsetail style drop which begins as a slide and pitches into a steeper veil type fall, and then after the stream constricts through a narrow gap in the cliff, a 93-foot veiling cascading fall which takes on a very eye-catching stair-step pattern from the underlying fractured bedrock. Due to the relatively shallow pitch of the falls, it is heavily affected by foreshortening and as such appears significantly smaller than its true stature suggests. Unfortunately due to the relatively small drainage size which Hopkins Creek possesses the falls do become considerably lackluster in the summer and early fall months. With sustained rain or melting snow higher up in the basin the stream flows well and the falls remain a worthy destination. In such low flow periods the foreshortening factor seems to be especially pronounced due to how the water is funneled into an especially well defined flume-like crack in part of the bedrock. Though all maps we've seen seem to indicate the falls do (just barely) occur on National Forest land, there are several private homes immediately nearby which cast doubt to the access situation. Every visit we've made there has been no indication that the falls are not accessible to the public, but if such signage does pop up, please be respectful of the rights of the adjacent property owners and do no trespass if the trail is so marked. One of the adjacent homeowners does appear to have rigged a small water catchment system downstream of the falls, so please leave the system alone - vandalism to private property like this is often what gets waterfalls such as these closed off to public access.We had previously listed this waterfall simply as Hopkins Creek Falls, in following with how it has appeared in all editions of Greg Plumb's Waterfall Lover's Guide books, having been under the assumption that it was the single waterfall indicated on the USGS topographic maps. However, after LIDAR-based terrain models on Google Earth confirmed the existence of several more falls upstream, further confirmed with subsequent field surveying, it has become clear that the waterfall which is indicated on the maps is in fact not this waterfall, but rather the much larger falls further upstream (see Hopkins Creek Falls below), so this waterfall has been re-titled to reflect its position in the series accordingly.