Upper Maligne Canyon Falls

Within Jasper National Park take the Yellowhead Highway east from the town of Jasper to the Maligne Lake Road and follow it for 6km to the signed parking area. The waterfall is found immediately adjacent to the parking lot and is viewed from an obvious steel fenced viewpoint.Maligne Canyon represents a geologic oddity not seen elsewhere in the greater Pacific Northwest but is fairly common in the northern Rocky Mountains. Limestone is a prevalent rock in this area, and due to its easily soluble nature Karst Topography – a general term for the presence of sinkholes and underground rivers and passages – is common in the region. What happens at Maligne Canyon is the Maligne River flows out of Medicine Lake, about 15 kilometers upstream as a full size river, but very quickly disappears into seeps in the ground and completely vanishes from the surface not far from the lake for most of the year. The smaller streams that feed the valley below that point rebuild the river by the time it reaches the top of the canyon, so the river is more like a small stream where it enters the gorge. As the river drops down the canyon, however, it intersects the bedrock layers where the underground river flows, and several large underground streams join and greatly amplify the flow. In the 2 kilometer walk from the top to the bottom of the canyon, the river increases in volume tenfold. Upper Maligne Canyon Falls is the smallest waterfall found along the precipitous course of the river in the area. The falls, perhaps more appropriately referred to as chutes, drop about 15 feet in a narrow sluice not more than 2-3 feet in width. The canyon here is only about 50 feet deep and is not nearly as imposing as it is a short distance downstream, but it is just as scenic and geologically interesting.