Waterfall Lover's Guide to the Pacific Northwest

Reviewed by Dean Goss

Greg Plumb's series of books amounts to a franchise. His books are all well put together and well organized. Each book's photographs changes from edition to edition, so you are getting your money's worth with each volume purchased. He's also important to the waterfall community because he has developed a system of waterfall typology that is the gold standard to which the rest of us adhere.

The fourth edition covers over 630 waterfalls. In addition to this, over 770 more waterfalls are mentioned in the appendix. It's a pretty exhaustive list. If you attempted to run this book like a checklist, you'd need several years worth of weekends to complete the task. The book is very tidily arranged by region, with detailed chapters within each region. There are a great deal of maps, lots of photos, and a brief descriptive narrative of each waterfall. In addition, additional falls are listed at the end of each section. Most of these are shown on the USGS maps, but are either too difficult to visit or were unable to be found. Plumb gives discouragement if a waterfall warrants this as in many places in the Pacific Northwest, the terrain is simply too extreme to be safely navigated.

The Bottom Line: Plumb's books, whether Pacific Northwest or Tennessee are STUFFED full of waterfall information. It would literally take years to trace his footsteps. Any waterfall afficionado should have these books. Happy trails!