PAUL CREEK FALLS

SAN JUAN COUNTY

DIRECTIONS - Take the ferry to Orcas Island.  Upon disembarking, turn left and drive along the road for around 25 minutes until you enter Moran State Park.  After passing Cascade Lake, take the left fork in the road and drive for about 1/2 mile to the trailhead for this and 4 other falls.  The trail is around 1.5 miles to see all of the falls.  Just before reaching Hidden Falls, you will cross over Paul Creek.  Follow it upstream a short distance to the bottom of the falls.  To see the top section, drive past the trailhead to the bridge over the creek.  Park and walk just upstream.
LOCATION - Moran State Park

TYPE - Tiered

HEIGHT - 150'

WIDTH - 30'

RATING - drop.jpg (2030 bytes)

TYPE OF APPROACH - Roadside or Trail

DIFFICULTY - Easy

NEARBY WATERFALLS - Cascade Falls, Cavern Falls, Hidden Falls, Lower Cascade Falls, Rosario Falls, Rustic Falls Don't let the 150' height get you too excited.  Paul Creek is a very small stream that runs down off Mount Constitution on Orcas Island and joins Cascade Creek shortly downstream from Hidden Falls.  The falls work like this:  the top is a horsetail about 15' tall (seen on the right below), followed by about 100 vertical feet of cascades over talus rock.  The creek then runs over a segmented horsetail of around 30' tall before crashing over more talus.  While the falls themselves are not horribly great, the area around them is very nice and Paul Bridge runs directly over the falls as the road heads to the top of the mountain.  By summertime these falls are a footnote, so try to see it at high water level.  These pictures are about as high as the creek ever gets.

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