The 20 Best Waterfall Hikes in the United States outsideonline.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from outsideonline.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
May 2, 2021
As fall is to leaf-peeping, spring is to waterfall-watching, a seasonal pursuit now underway in the northern and higher regions of the United States.
Waterfalls can range from thunderous plunges to delicate mossy trickles. They can be backcountry pop-ups or the centerpieces of parks, like Great Falls Park in McLean, Virginia, and Silver Falls State Park, near Salem, Oregon.
There’s no agreed-upon definition of a waterfall, according to Joel Scheingross, an assistant professor of geology at the University of Nevada, Reno, who studies those that detach from the bed of a river, creating an air pocket between the face and the water jet. Waterfalls, he explained, can be the result of glacial carving (as at Niagara Falls), or through faults in tectonic plates. Places where hard and soft rock mix often produce waterfalls pouring over a harder rock cap that carve away soft rock below.