Hiking

Mesa Falls, Idaho: If Every Waterfall Were This Good, We’d Never Leave

By Gina Knudson, 7-20-11

	Upper Mesa Falls cascades more than 110 feet. Photo courtesy of Gina Knudson.

I come from a family of blatant waterfall oglers. No hike is too difficult, overgrown, or ridiculous if a waterfall has even been rumored to be in the area.

So when we found ourselves in eastern Idaho for a baseball tournament recently, we couldn’t pass up a detour to Mesa Falls. The Mesa Falls Scenic Byway is a 28-mile drive through the Caribou-Targhee National Forest and serene barley, potato and wheat fields between Island Park and Ashton.

In the middle of the drive, the famed Henry’s Fork of the Snake River stretches to 200-feet wide and then tumbles 114-feet over Upper Mesa Falls, then 85-feet over Lower Mesa Falls, about a mile downstream.

At the Upper Mesa Falls visitor center, Forest Service rangers are on hand to provide interpretive information about the falls, the restored lodge, and the wide variety of wildlife. Photo courtesy of Gina Knudson.

The falls ogling is ridiculously easy.

The Upper Mesa Falls visitor center (USFS fee area, day use is $5) has lots of parking and a deluxe boardwalk eases down to the dazzling falls. We surprised ourselves by spending as much time at the historic and nicely renovated Big Springs Lodge as we did checking out the falls. Forest Service rangers are on hand to answer questions about the falls, the lodge and a nice collection of skulls, tracks, and pelts of the many and varied animals species that call the area home.

Mesa Falls is Yellowstone-fantastic (and is, in fact, considered part of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem) without the Yellowstone crowds. Mosquitoes outnumbered tourists by at least 100 to 1 during our weekend visit. One thing I’ll do differently next time, however, is take advantage of the lodge’s sprawling covered porch. We’ll bring a picnic, maybe some mint juleps and occupy the row of empty wicker chairs while we listen to the music of the Henry’s Fork. If getting to a waterfall is going to be this easy, we better make the most of it.

Gina Knudson writes from Salmon, Idaho.

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