Place Creek Falls

From Pemberton, take Highway 99 north to the small town of Mount Currie, then as Highway 99 makes a sharp right toward Lillooet, continue straight on Birkenhead River Road, following signs pointing to D'arcy and Birkenhead Lake Provincial Park. Continue for about 20 kilometers. About half of a kilometer past the railroad track crossing, turn right in to Anson Place and park in the large turnaround at its end. From here, the trail follows an overgrown dirt road across the railroad tracks and crosses through a private cattle pasture under powerline clearings. Stay to the left where the road forks and try to cross straight through the clearings to find the road on the far side. If you pick up the right spot, the trail will make itself known fairly obviously. After climbing steeply for about 1-1/2km the trail reaches a viewpoint along a low ridge directly across from the base of the falls. The uppermost tier of the falls can also be seen from just off the Birkenhead River Road near the aforementioned railroad crossing.Place Creek Falls is a large waterfall located at the bottom of a long, steep tumble that its namesake stream makes as it descends from the Place Glacier down to the Pemberton Pass area. Place Creek loses well over 1,300 meters of elevation over a 4 kilometer length as it descends into the valley below, but surprisingly only a small fraction of that seems to occur in the form of waterfalls. Located at the very bottom of its descent to the valley, Place Creek Falls tumbles about 120 meters (400 feet) in four distinct steps down a stair-step type series of falls, with the final step falling nearly vertically. During our most recent survey in May of 2018 we attempted to properly measure the falls, but our efforts were thwarted by dead batteries. Above the falls there may be additional waterfalls to be found, but not likely close enough to Place Creek Falls to be considered part of the same series of falls. Below the falls the creek runs through a short narrow gorge which takes on some characteristics of Canadian Rocky Mountain-style slot canyons in places.
Place Creek drains a basin which covers an area of approximately 11-1/2 square kilometers (4-1/2 square miles), and is fed almost exclusively by the melt of the Place Glacier, which covers nearly one-quarter of the basin. Because the creek is primarily fed by glacial melt, its flow is typically highest during the warmest months of the year between June and September, but the falls will flow strongly from mid Spring until mid to late Autumn when the high elevation temperatures fall below the freezing level throughout the day.