Step Falls

Step Falls is best seen from the Loowit Trail in the vicinity of the ford of Loowit Creek (see the link for Lower Loowit Falls below for directions), within Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument. The falls can also be distantly seen from the Boundary Trail starting at about two miles east of the Johnson Ridge Observatory at the end of Highway 504.Step Creek is the smaller of two significant watercourses which flow from the crater of Mount St. Helens. After the mountain erupted in 1980 the crater began functioning as a large catchment basin, and in the winter of 1981-1981 the Crater Glacier began to form and is now the largest glacier on the mountain, as well as the youngest and fastest growing glacier in the United States. Once the glacier began forming, its meltwater began channeling into what is now Loowit and Step Creeks. Loowit Creek represents the primary outflow path, while Step Creek formed in a parallel channel. Both streams have carved significant canyons into the post-eruption landscape, but because Step Canyon occurs in an area with significantly less resistant earth, it formed a much larger, deeper and generally more impressive canyon. Like its neighbor, Step Canyon is incredibly unstable and is the site of frequent landslides and debris avalanches. This instability was the catalyst which led to the formation of the canyon in the first place and has since resulted in parts of the canyon widening as well as significant alterations to Step Falls itself over the years. Comparing imagery available on Google Earth which was taken in 1994 to imagery in 2020 shows Step Falls to have migrated upstream by over 300 feet in that 26 year timeframe, but perhaps more impressive is that the creek has cut its channel so much deeper in that 15-year span that Step Falls may have been reduced in height by as much as half. The falls may have been over 150 feet tall in the mid-90s, while as of 2020 its drop appears to be about 70 feet, based on terrain models generated from LiDAR data.Step Creek was named after the Sasquatch Steps, a series of rough terraces and cliffs found on the north flank of Mount St. Helens immediately below the breached crater. Step Falls was then named for the stream.