About Fall Creek Falls
Fall Creek Falls (I’ve also seen it referred to as Falls Creek Falls) was one of the more scenically located waterfalls we’ve come across as it spilled over 60ft right into the Snake River. It had a character that was like a miniature version of the Detian Waterfall though I’m sure the geology was quite a bit different. With no signage and only scrambling paths to get a closer look at the falls from land or taking a boat on the Snake River to get a more expansive view, this was one of the less crowded and obscure waterfalls. Since we were here in the early morning, the nice soft glow of the rising sun gave the surrounding area a golden look to the scene, especially on the cliffs surrounding the falls. At other times of the day, it appeared that the lighting would be suboptimal for photo buffs, if the sun was out.
I’ve only been able to manage getting views of the falls from land, and as you can see, I could only get partial angled views of it. I attained such views from an unsigned roadside pullout (see directions below), where I then followed some overgrown trails of use through prickly bush and tall grass, and eventually got to the edge of the cliff where I could get profile views of the Fall Creek Falls. In order to improve my view, I scrambled a little further in the downstream direction, where it eventually descended to a ledge that yielded the view you see at the top of this page. While I did notice a very steep scrambling path besides the falls leading to the base, I decided against doing it as I wasn’t sure I’d be able to make it back up. The amount of erosion on that path ensured that the footing would be slippery at best. It would only be a matter of time before this access to the base would no longer be safely viable. Overall, I had spent less than a half-hour away from the car.
We’ll start the driving directions from the interchange of the I-15 and the US Hwy 20 at the city of Idaho Falls. Going south along the I-15 from the interchange, we took the exit 118 towards Historic Downtown and Arco. We then turned left at the light onto Broadway Street and follow it for about 0.8 miles to the traffic light at the corner of Broadway and Yellowstone Ave. We then turned left onto Yellowstone Ave and followed this street, which would eventually become the US Highway 26. At about 40 miles from the Yellowstone Ave and Broadway Street intersection, we exited the Hwy 26 at the easy-to-miss NF-058 Road just before the Hwy 26 was about to cross the bridge over the Swan River (eventually leading to the town of Swan Valley).
Once we got off the highway and onto the National Forest Service Road, we then drove about 1.4 miles to an unsigned pullout on our left. It was about 0.1 mile beyond the Fall Creek Road (which we didn’t take). Overall, this drive took us about 45 minutes or so.
For some geographical context, Idaho Falls was about 52 miles (under an hour drive) north of Pocatello, 108 miles (under 2 hours drive) south of West Yellowstone, Montana, about 88 miles (under 2 hours drive) west of Jackson, Wyoming, and 214 miles (3 hours drive) north of Salt Lake City, Utah, and 287 miles (4 hours drive) east of Boise.
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Right to left sweep checking out the falls from the further viewing spots I was able to find
Video showing the scrambling paths leading to a couple of different vantage points of the falls
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