Deadwood Falls

After we visited St Mary and Virginia Falls Patti and I drove a short distance up the Sun Road to the Gunsight trail head at the Jackson Glacier Overlook location.

The red X marks where I took the photos and video.

The Gunsight trail is another trail that starts out going down.  We could have walked on a trail that starts near St Mary Falls but Patti mistakenly thought the distance was longer than if we hiked from the Gunsight trail head.  I found that the distances are about the same.  I've never hiked from St Mary Falls but I wonder if the trail would be more level than hiking in from the Gunsight trail head?


However if one hikes from St Mary Falls it would be easy to miss Deadwood Falls along Reynolds Creek as the St Mary Falls trail and Gunsight trail meet downstream near the bridge, which is below sight and sound of the falls.  Sound doesn't carry far in this area, even from loud waterfalls.

Reynolds Creek

Reynolds Creek from the bridge

Bridge over Reynolds Creek

I made a video of Deadwood Falls.  It is 1:48 long.

http://youtu.be/ZvbwRvrMvvQ

Virginia Falls

On June 25 Patti and I hiked to a number of waterfalls in the St Mary area of Glacier Park.  2011 was a high snow and high water year so the streams and waterfalls were running high.  After we visited St Mary Falls we continued up the trail to Virginia Falls.

The trail is around 1.5 miles long from the Sun Road to Virginia Falls and it climbs 285 feet to the falls.  For the most part we followed Virginia Creek on our hike to the falls.

The water was coming down much more than any other time I have visited these falls. Usually I could stand where I took the last two photos and not get wet.  Not this time!  I got pretty wet in the very short time it took me to take the photos.

Here is a video of Virginia Falls. It is 2:39 long.   Several years ago a woman fell into the stream from the bridge seen in the video.  She was washed away and drowned.

http://youtu.be/8Ih-XeYPE0I