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With all the mapping technology we have today, how did the parks service miss this 400' waterfall? http://www.flyanglersonline.com/bb/smile.gif
[url=http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2005/08/17/build/nation/85-waterfall.inc:190b3]http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2005/08/17/build/nation/85-waterfall.inc[/url:190b3]
Once upon a time, I was a surveyor for the Forest Service, laying out trails in various places in the northwest. One day my boss handed me a hand-drawn map showing where a trail we were to survey was to go. There was a ribbon line through the woods, which we followed, but it was usually pretty sketchy and we didn't really know how far and what terrain, etc in most cases.
Well, this map showed us branching off of the main trail, going a ways up this creek, crossing the creek, coming around a corner, and then up alongside a waterfall, where the trail would swtichback up the hill and then back to the top of the falls. No problem.
We surveyed off the trail, across the creek, around the corner, and there was this pretty little 20' waterfall on the creek. The flagging went right past it. We thought about it for a while, shrugged that our boss had been so wrong, and kept surveying. Went another quarter of a mile, around a corner, and there in front of us is a 50' waterfall. "Oh, this must be the falls". But the flagging went right past it. We redid the "idiot boss map" routine and kept going. Another quarter of a mile, another corner, and we come out below a 400' waterfall that NONE of us had ever heard of.
Places like this are "undiscovered", except by all the folks who have ever been there and decided the whole world didn't need to know about a special place. I like to keep them that way if possible.
PS. You can see the Whiskeytown waterfalls from the air.
Dennis