Waterfalls of the Pacific Northwest

Reviewed by

David Anderson is the third author to tackle a guidebook on waterfalls in the Pacific Northwest, and he does it in worthy fashion, but for the particular subject and area covered, this offering seriously lacks the punch it needed to raise the bar. The books written by Greg Plumb on the waterfalls in the Pacific Northwest are among the most detailed and thorough waterfall guidebooks ever written. David Anderson's follow up offering basically took a handful of the most accessible, most well known and most photogenic waterfalls in Washington and Oregon and wrote more detailed accounts of them, but the process by which Anderson selected the waterfalls to include in the book seems odd. Omitted are many well known, easily accessed locations. Our impression is that the author hunted for the best of the easiest to reach waterfalls until he had enough to stretch a book together.

Further curious is the structure of the book. Countryman Press had produced two other waterfall guidebooks prior to this offering, both of which were laid out intelligently in some way or another. This book, on the other hand, features no Index, the waterfalls are not ordered alphabetically within the chapters and even the chapters themselves span both Washington and Oregon rather than grouping waterfalls by proximity to certain areas, which makes looking up a particular waterfall difficult. Whether this is a knock on Countryman Press or Anderson himself, we don't know.

The information presented within this book is largely very useful. Aside from over or underestimating the heights of some of the waterfalls presented, the write ups on each waterfall are largely accurate, showing that unlike some authors, Anderson actually did do a great amount of field work. However, I honestly expected more tutelage on how to properly photograph some of the locations when the book was authored by a professional photographer - even if it was just simple information about which direction each waterfall faces and what conditions one can expect during certain times of the year. There is also an obvious lack of photographs for the size of the book (about 40 over 185 or so pages) and those that are presented often look muddied by the conversion to black and white.

All in all, Waterfalls of the Pacific Northwest is worth picking up if you enjoy visiting these locations - even sporadically - thanks to the helpful, detailed directions, well researched information and superb maps, but the selection of the content featured in the book, or lack thereof, ultimately makes this an incomplete work that doesn't quite live up to its expectations.