“Secret?,” you say. “Doesn’t look like a secret if you are posting online!”
After much discussion with other waterfall enthusiasts I have decided to keep the location of this place secret, however I will share the photos and some information on the journey. I am doing this because the ecosystem of this area is very delicate and if made widely known to the public it could get “loved to death” very quickly. I don’t want that.
In a nutshell, most parts of this hike/trek are difficult and there are no well-worn trails to get you there. It’s the middle of June in Wisconsin meaning the forest is dense and overgrown. Even more so in this place that time seems to have forgotten and humans have had little impact on.
Above the falls the only clues of any kind are a small stream that is barely recognizable unless you are purposefully looking for it like I was.
Views from the top of the falls leave you wanting. You can only really see a few feet of the drop but you can tell it is much larger than that. But how to reach the bottom?
Another view looking over the falls and downstream on the creek. Access from the left side down is suicide. Access from the right could be done (maybe) if you have a climbing rope and some skills but I have neither of those today. I tried this route and glad I failed – it would have ended poorly.
Ultimately I decided to go all the way around on a very long route up & over the surrounding ridges. Once at the very bottom, you basically need to walk up through the creek or maybe at times on the surrounding rocky banks. It’s very narrow here like a big secret tunnel.
Making some progress moving upstream. Again the easiest way is right up the creek itself so make sure you have proper footwear or don’t mind getting wet feet.
Even further upstream now and you can see the falls in the distance. Much larger than you could see above the falls. Still need some more climbing across slippery rocks from here.
On my entire trip I never saw any evidence of human access other than one footprint in the sand. I know people do visit occasionally but this area is very remote and hard to reach.
Finally near the falls but still some large rocks blocking a full view. This part is probably the most dangerous due to risk of slipping – rocks are steeper than they look here.
One last steep section to clear for best views. I took a good deal of time here, didn’t want to fall and risk injury because that would be a very long walk back to the car.
Here’s the best photo I had today of the falls. I didn’t really plan this out and it was very bad lighting conditions. Still gives a good idea of what this looks like in spring/summer.
Video
Here’s a video of the falls and the hike to get there. Again not a complete representation of the hike as I feel it needs to be a bit protected. Enjoy the video for now and maybe in the future more info will be shared.
Hiking
No hiking map/path and I have purposely obscured the GPS location below (i.e. it’s obviously not in the center of Logansville). Here are some statistics of the hike. This doesn’t do justice to the difficulty level. If by some miracle you figure out the location be advised this is harder than it looks!
Well done Adam!!!
Thanks Bob, much appreciated!