Shoshone Falls — waterfall
Image by josephhill from Pixabay

Shoshone Falls

  • Elevation992 m
  • 2 min read
  • 42.595° N 114.401° W

Interesting facts

  • The Bonneville Flood that carved the canyon released about 1,100 cubic miles of water, some 1,500 times the Snake River's average yearly flow at Twin Falls.
  • Bishop Blanchet, a native of Quebec, first named the cataract "Canadian Falls"; the name lasted only two years before "Shoshone Falls" replaced it.
  • The Lemhi Shoshone called themselves Agaidika, "salmon eaters", and speared fish below the falls with willow shafts tipped with elk horn.
  • Because fish cannot pass the falls, the river above shares only about 35 percent of its fish species with the river below; the WWF treats it as an ecoregion boundary.
  • Gold was found in the canyon in 1869, and by 1872 roughly 3,000 miners had arrived; Chinese miners later worked the fine "gold flour" into the 1880s.
  • A cable ferry once crossed the river just above the brink; in 1904 and 1905 boats broke loose and were swept over the falls, killing four people.
  • The highest flow on record at Twin Falls was 32,200 cubic feet per second on June 10, 1914; the lowest, 303, came on April 1, 2013.
  • Even when the river is almost fully diverted upstream, springs bursting from the canyon walls can still send up to 3,000 cubic feet per second over the falls.
  • In 1868 the geologist Clarence King became the first to suggest the canyon was made in moments of catastrophe rather than slow erosion, long before the Bonneville Flood was understood.
  • In 2016, 42 years after Evel Knievel's failed attempt, stuntman Eddie Braun cleared the Snake River Canyon in a replica of his rocket.

Why it is worth it

Shoshone Falls plunges 212 feet (65 metres) over a horseshoe-shaped rim some 925 feet (280 metres) wide on the Snake River in southern Idaho — taller than Niagara by about 45 feet, which is why it has been called "the Niagara of the West" since at least the 1860s. Above the drop the river squeezes through rapids split by islands; in high water it falls as one unbroken curtain, in low water it separates into four or more strands, the widest of them on the north side known as Bridal Veil Falls.

The falls are young and were made violently. Around 14,500–17,000 years ago, at the end of the last ice age, Lake Bonneville in the Great Basin overflowed through Red Rock Pass and released an immense flood down the Snake, carving the canyon in a matter of weeks. Where the water met a hard band of roughly six-million-year-old volcanic rock, the cliff survived as a step. The drop has always been the upper limit for salmon and steelhead: fish gathered at its base in vast numbers, and the Lemhi Shoshone, after whom the falls are named, came here to fish and trade. The first written description came from Bishop Augustin-Magloire Blanchet in 1847; the name was chosen in 1849 by members of a US Army column, and the artist George Gibbs made the first known drawing. Timothy O'Sullivan photographed the falls in 1868 and again in 1874, and Thomas Moran painted them around 1900.

The 20th century changed the falls more than the previous millennia. In 1905 Milner Dam upstream began diverting the Snake to irrigate the desert — the reclamation that gave the region its name, the Magic Valley — and the falls could run nearly dry by late summer. A hydroelectric plant built directly above the rim in 1907 takes a further share. Spring snowmelt still brings the full spectacle, with flows that can exceed 20,000 cubic feet per second in wet years. In 1974 Evel Knievel attempted to jump the canyon about a mile west of the falls in a rocket-powered cycle; his parachute opened early and he drifted, injured but alive, to the riverbank.

Getting there

The falls are about 6 km from the city of Twin Falls, on the south rim of the Snake River Canyon, where the city maintains Shoshone Falls Park with an overlook and rim trails. The nearest airport is Magic Valley Regional Airport (TWF) at Joslin Field, about 15 km away.

On these lists

The Most Beautiful Places in the United States 228The Most Beautiful Waterfalls in the United States 13The Most Beautiful Water Wonders in the United States 30The Most Beautiful Waterfalls 90The Most Beautiful Water Wonders 429

From the encyclopaedia

Shoshone Falls is a waterfall in the western United States, on the Snake River in south-central Idaho, approximately three miles (5 km) northeast of the city of Twin Falls. Sometimes called the "Niagara of the West," Shoshone Falls is 212 feet (65 m) in height, 45 feet (14 m) higher than Niagara Falls, and flows over a rim nearly one thousand feet (300 m) in width.

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

42.59519, -114.40087per Wikidata