Upper Anderson Creek Falls

Anderson Creek heads in a series of pretty lakes on the southwest side of Mount Watson just outside of the Noisy-Diobsud Wilderness near Baker Lake. Upon exiting the lowest and largest of the four small lakes the creek begins carving a shallow canyon amid the huckleberry-covered meadows, slowly growing deeper and deeper as it cascades gently down the hillside. About four-tenths of a mile below the lake, the creek runs into the side of the small plateau and hurtles itself over the side of the valley in what would by itself be a rather scenic and fairly impressive veiling horsetail style waterfall. However, due to the contorted and rugged shape of the canyon and the thick forest surrounding it there are few (if any) clear views of the falls, and those which are available simply tantalize with glimpses of not even half of the falls. When we surveyed the falls in August 2012, we were able to measure the visible portion of the drop to be 103 feet tall. Topographic data extracted from LIDAR imaging suggests that the entire drop is somewhere in the vicinity of 130 feet tall, however standing near the top of the falls it looks much, much taller than this. It may be that because the creek cascades steeply down a gully filled with talus below the main falls that the total drop appears bigger than it actually is (LIDAR data is usually extremely accurate) so it may simply be that the falls are not nearly as tall as first impressions let on. We will also extend a word of caution about this waterfall - although reaching the area above the falls is relatively easy, the falls can only be viewed from a very precarious ridge-top promontory with sheer cliffs on one side and extremely steep hillsides on the other side. Falling in virtually any direction at this location has the potential to be fatal and in following we do not suggest this waterfall be visited (especially in light of the fact that you cannot see the whole waterfall from this location).