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In the early
1980s, I was involved in a student effort to designate a wilderness
area for the Salmon River and surrounding backcountry. While
researching the history of the Salmon River, I was surprised
to learn that the chain of waterfalls in the Salmon River Gorge
had only been officially named in 1963. I had hiked the Salmon
River trail many times, but had only glimpsed the falls from
the trail, which skirts high above the Salmon River Gorge. The
exception was Little Niagra Falls, an abrupt 15 foot torrent,
that I had bushwacked to some years before. The volume and scale
of that falls - the smallest of the named falls on the Salmon
- compelled me to visit the other falls that were named in 1963
In the spring
of 1983, I organized two expeditions with college friends from
Oregon State University to visit the depths of the Salmon River
Gorge. These trips to the falls were a 20th Anniversary tribute
to the original Oregon Geographic Names Board (OGNB) expedition
that visited and named the falls in the summer of 1963. My 1983
tribute expeditions included Dave O'Dell, Jon Osborn and Doug
Lorain, who appear in some of the photographs that follow.
The second of
the 1983 missions was to Final and Frustration, the last in a
chain of six named falls. Final Falls is the name proposed in1963
by W. Kirk Braun for the 45 foot falls located just upstream
from Copper Creek. Final Falls plunges into a deep bowl, inaccessible
to hikers. An unnamed 15 foot falls is located 50 yards upstream
from Final Falls, and is referred to as Upper Final Falls in
these pages.
Braun proposed
the name Frustration Falls for the next major cataract in the
string. It is located approximately 200 yards above Final Falls.
The name aptly describes a falls that is nearly inaccessible
to hikers. Frustration Falls drops 55 feet in an elaborate series
of shelves and steps. A small tributary drops into the gorge
created by Frustration Falls, floating nearly 200 feet down the
canyon wall in a thin veil. This falls is referred to as Little
Frustration Falls in these pages.
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