Takkakaw Falls

Takkakaw is said to be the Cree Indian word for "awesome" and it truly applies to this falls. The stream is born from a glacier. It runs a mere quarter of a mile, then plunges straight down more than a thousand feet into the Yoho Valley. A protruding ledge near the top makes the water explode out from the cliff face before falling free almost to the base.

Some falls are awesome, some could even be called fearsome. Many are graceful, or just pretty. I think the best adjective for Takkakaw is majestic. The setting in the great glacial valley of Yoho is spectacular. The height of the falls makes the water seem to arrow down in slow motion. The sound of the falls is a rolling thunder, waxing and waning with the wind. I found I could sit and watch it for hours.

Takkakaw Falls played a key role in awakening my lifetime interest in waterfalls. I had been to Yosemite many times as a child, and knew all the falls, their names and heights. I looked up "waterfalls" in the World Book Encyclopedia, and there was a full page illustration of some of the world's highest falls -- Angel, Tugela, Ribbon, Takkakaw. The very placenames, Takkakaw in the Yoho Valley, seemed so dramatic, I knew I had to go and see. It turned out to be many years before I got there, but now I have been three times, each a wonderful experience.

Most waterfalls in high mountain regions have their peak in the spring or early summer, when the snow is melting. But Takkakaw is fed mostly from a glacier, which warms and releases water only very slowly. So this is one waterfall that gains in volume all through the summer, until the first hard freezes in September.