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Lower Mesa Falls

Caribou-Targhee National Forest / Ashton, Idaho, USA

About Lower Mesa Falls

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Waterfall Safety and Common Sense

Lower Mesa Falls was a gushing 65ft waterfall on the Henry’s Fork of the Snake River that was just downstream from the more accessible Upper Mesa Falls.

Similar to the other waterfall, this falls resulted from a combination of rhyolite tuff (referred to here as the Mesa Falls tuff) and basalt lava that originated from a supervolcano eruption said to have occurred about a million years ago.

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Lower Mesa Falls

This eruption was said to be the second of three such eruptions each in their own separate giant calderas of which the most famous one was within the Yellowstone National Park boundary to the northeast of here.

Tuff was basically the result of superheated volcanic ash and molten granite fusing together in the high temperatures of the eruption to form the hard erosion-resistant rock layer.

The softer layers around it wore away at a faster rate than the tuff, and the result was the Lower Mesa Falls.

Evidence of the violent past of this area were all around us as we could see the dark vertical cliffs with skirts containing a curious jumble of boulders piling along these slopes.

While the Upper Mesa Falls had a visitor center and some boardwalks, the easiest way to experience the Lower Mesa Falls was by a short paved walk to an overlook peering right down at the waterfall (as you can see pictured above).

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Slope consisting of jumbles of huge volcanic boulders related to the rhyolite tuff that gave rise to the Lower Mesa Falls

The walk was a mere 0.1-mile round trip and took no more than 15 minutes away from the car.

Apparently, there was a less sanctioned way to hike closer to the waterfall, but we didn’t try that and can’t say more about it.

There was also a 1.7-mile trail that linked both the Lower and Upper Mesa Falls to prolong the experience if one were so inclined to do so.

Authorities

Lower Mesa Falls resides in the Caribou-Targhee National Forest. For information or inquiries about the area as well as current conditions, visit their website or Facebook page.

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Tagged with: idaho falls, idaho, waterfall, targhee, caribou, national forest, ashton, west yellowstone, yellowstone, henrys fork, freemont, mesa falls scenic byway



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