Marten Buttes Falls

The French Creek drainage near the east end of Detroit Lake seems to be teeming with waterfalls. The USGS topographic maps of the area mark five falls in the drainage, but thus far we have recorded least 11 in the area. Of all of the falls in the basin , Marten Buttes Falls is likely the tallest and certainly one of the most impressive - even though the stream is seasonal (it isn't even marked on the topographic maps) and will dry out entirely during the summer. During the wet season, the unnamed stream producing the falls hurtles off a large cliff lining the north side of the French Creek valley, spraying a total of 364 feet in a long horsetail-style fall which splits into two segments about halfway down the drop. Because of the aforementioned small drainage area - likely less than a quarter of a square mile - the stream will almost certainly shrivel up and dry out by the end of May in most years.Neither the creek nor the falls are known to have bore any name, colloquial or otherwise. We have proposed calling the falls after the Marten Buttes, which loom over the northern edge of the basin which the falls drain from.