Appeal Tribune
❚ WEDNESDAY, MAY 20, 2020 ❚ 1B
Outdoors
BIG SECRET
Jerry Falls is the tallest among the seven “Family Falls” first documented by Salem’s Maynard Drawson.
ZACH URNESS/STATESMAN JOURNAL
Opal Creek Wilderness hides
giant ‘family’ of waterfalls
Zach Urness
Salem Statesman Journal
USA TODAY NETWORK
Editors note: Oregon’s outdoors is slowly re-
opening from COVID-19 restrictions, but many
sites remain limited or closed. Until that
changes, the Statesman Journal is featuring
“greatest hits” from outdoors writer Zach Urness
each week in a nod to armchair adventure and
for future trip planning purposes.
This story was originally published June 11,
2016.
There is no trail to Family Falls, and it can’t be
found on official maps.
Clues about the location are whispered be-
tween friends, a secret known only to those will-
ing to bushwhack into a canyon of high cliffs and
thick forest deep in the Opal Creek Wilderness.
The journey is not easy.
A trip requires scrambling up and down steep
ridges, crossing a creek multiple times and
crawling head-first through a cave.
But the reward arrives with the discovery of
one beautiful waterfall after the next, the family
of seven waterfalls living together in a setting so
primeval you’d swear you were the first person
to lay eyes upon it.
But, of course, you’d be wrong.
Maynard Drawson, known for big-tree hunting,
discovered the “Family Falls” waterfalls some
50 years ago. PHOTO COURTESY OF TOM KLOSTER
Almost five decades ago this spring, a Salem
barber named Maynard Drawson became the
first person to document these waterfalls on up-
per Henline Creek in the Little North Santiam
canyon east of Salem.
A World War II veteran, author, father of sev-
en children and lifelong Salem resident, Draw-
son was best-known for exploring places over-
looked by the masses. He wrote about his expe-
riences in a series of books, “Treasures of the
Oregon Country.”
“His name is Maynard Drawson and his hob-
by is Oregon — literally,” reads a story published
in the Medford Mail Tribune on Dec. 26, 1977.
“Oregon’s hills and valleys and histories and old
towns and forest and places names intrigue
him, and he delights in sharing his findings with
others.”
Drawson’s discovery of the waterfalls set in
motion a small-scale drama over the question of
who gets to name special landmarks.
Since Drawson was the first person to docu-
ment the series of falls — it had been overlooked
by surveyors and didn’t appear on any map — he
decided to take a page from the explorers of old.
He named each waterfall for one of his children,
plus his friend Jerry.
He dubbed the entire area “Family Falls,” and
his discovery made the front page of the Capital
Journal on June 6, 1970.
But getting a name affixed to a special place
had become more complex, and after years of
wrangling and waffling, the Oregon Geographic
Names Board rejected Drawson’s names by 1973.
“My contention of discovery has been ig-
nored and my name suggestions officially re-
fused,” Drawson wrote.
Without an official designation on the map,
the fanfare around Family Falls was mostly for-
gotten, the waterfalls becoming a blank space
on the map once again.
See SECRET, Page 2B
Wading into DIY outdoor gear repair
Fishing
Henry Miller
Guest columnist
This week we feature Henry’s first-
ever at-home outdoors quarantine clin-
ic: How to patch your chest waders.
It was inspired by a burning desire to
actually go clamming and fishing in the
near future.
An annoying leak in my lightweight,
stocking-foot necessities meant a seri-
ous soaking of the lower left leg, some-
times up to almost the knees.
Refreshing but annoying during the
summer; turning to hypothermic and
life-threatening come February.
One school of thought about repair-
ing the problem is to inflate and hold the
suspect leg under water and watch for
bubbles.
I was assured that it is easy-peasy if
you have a pool, hot tub or even a kiddie
pool, none of which is available.
I can see the emails already: Why not
use the bathtub?
Which leads to the second complica-
tion: Trying to keep the leg inflated
while you are wrestling it under the wa-
ter.
It’s like trying to drown an air bed
with an open release valve in a full bath-
tub in a long, thin shower cabinet with a
sliding-glass door.
I’d invite you over with a mop and
bucket if you’ve got an hour or so and we
weren’t trying to stay 6 feet apart.
Option 2 is to use a spray bottle to
spritz water with dish soap over the in-
flated leg as you squeeze on it to force
out the air, forming bubbles at the leak
site.
This is a perfect technique when
looking for low-pressure air or gas leaks
on pipes or inflatables such as pool toys
or rafts.
Waders? Not so much.
Trying to keep the leg inflated while
simultaneously squeezing and spritzing
is like wrestling with a soap-slickened,
Brobdingnagian bagpipe, minus the
noise.
So no soap, pun intended.
Let me save you the mess and frus-
tration of the previous two fails with the
solution I finally came up with.
Turn the damnable super soakers in-
side-out, because you want the patch,
for shabby chic fashion’s sake, on the in-
side.
Using the suspenders, hang the wad-
ers from a limb of a tree in the back yard,
preferably over a spot that could use
some watering. Pick a limb that’s high
enough that the wader booties stay off
the ground.
Charge up the garden hose and fill the
waders to a level above the suspected
leak. The elastic in the suspenders as
you fill them almost makes it look as if
they’re dancing, which potentially
could lead to ...
If the tree has fully leafed-out, the
sight of a pair of bobbing legs dangling
down looks as though you dispensed
rough justice on a fishing poacher.
Potentially making you a YouTube or
TikTok celebrity as well as the subject of
several neighborhood watch 911 calls.
I digress.
Standing at the ready with the trusty
Sharpie to mark the spot, the first drib-
bles started from what appeared to be a
pinhole leak.
Success!
Then the next appeared, then five or
six more.
The apparently defective weld on the
seam between the neoprene booty on
the left leg and the waterproof (ha!) up-
per was totally shot.
The new waders are coming via UPS
in about a week.
OUTDOOR JOURNALIST THOUGHT
To find leaks in your waders, hang
them from a tree and fill with water.
PHOTOS BY HENRY MILLER / SPECIAL TO THE
STATESMAN JOURNAL
FOR THE WEEK: “He who can, does; he
who cannot, teaches,” - George Bernard
Shaw. To which I would add: “And those
who cannot do or teach end up writing
about it.”
Contact Henry Miller via email at
HenryMillerSJ@gmail.com