Talk:Shannon Falls Provincial Park

Third highest?

This sounds like a brag, considering Hunlen, Helmcken, Takkakaw, Yoho and others....Bridal Veil Falls Provincial Park must not be far behind; and any number of unnamed waterfalls far outrank Shannon Falls; it's like the thing about the Cheif being the "largest granite monolith" in the world. Well, maybe the largest one next to a major highway anyway.....Skookum1 (talk) 19:33, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

[1]. Even the government says it's third highest. --The Dark Side (talk) 01:32, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, but BC Parks is as much promotional in some ways as their tourism sites are, and equally full of holes. My main reservation about Shannon Falls - and I'm very familiar with it - is that the height compar4ison with Della and Hunlen Falls is not adequate; in teh case of Hunlen at least, if not Della, the height of the falls is a single waterfall, not a series of cascades over a rockface like Shannon is, and apparently also Della from what I've seen of it. Brandywine clearlly has a larger single cascade-height, i.e. single drop, than Shannon does. Playing games with statistical data is old hat fro govenrments, never forget that when quoting their sites; they'll also claim that Vancouver has a vibrant nightlife instead of being No Fun City, too. I've seen bigger unnamed waterfalls in hte Bridge River Canyon - Michelmoon Falls I'll find a height for, in fact, as it at least has a name; the innumerable unnamed waterfalls of the Cheam-Laidlaw-Hope-Yale area are hidden within the forests and charted onlyh as creeks; many of them cascade Shannon-like down thousands of feet of mountainside; they may only be visible when it rains heavily, but they're still there. I don't buy the "third highest waterfall" in BC, unless that's qualified by a statement that it's not a free-standing waterfall; separate tables/recknnings should be kept between the two. The page could maybe say "the BC Parks site says that...." plus a rider that this is total height, and not a single waterfall but rather many combined. And again, i can think of other locations which don't have tourist stops, brochures, obsessive photography coverage/promotion, and a hype machine; Icy BC may ahve an article, I'll see; it's otherwise known as Crown Lake Falls, though not officially named and designated (or paid attention to by BC Parks' writers) gonna check its height as it's at least in the same range; will only be able to do that via BC Basemap, though mabye bivouac.com has some stats; Sebring Creek near Terzqghi Dam is another watercourse-cum-iceclimb and again, at least 1000'.....Skookum1 (talk) 02:05, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

As an example of the inconsistency and unreliability of BC Parks site, here's the paragraph on waterfall heights from the Shannon Falls page:

Shannon Falls is composed of a series of cliffs, rising 335 meters above Highways 99, making it the third highest falls in the province, ranking behind 481 metre Della Falls in Strathcona Provincial Park on Vancouver Island and 396 metre Hunlen Falls in Tweedsmuir Provincial Park near Bella Coola.

And here's the equivalent paragraph on Tweedsmuir South Provincial Park's webpage, where Hunlen Falls is located:

Hunlen Falls, at the north end of Turner Lake, is a major attraction, plunging 260 metres and disappearing in a cloud of spray before entering the Atnarko River.

And here's the Strathcona Provincial Park's BC Parks webpage on Della Falls:

Della Falls, whose drop of 440 meters over three cascades makes it one of the highest waterfalls in Canada, is located in the southern section of the park.

So cites for the height of Della Falls alone are possible from just the one BC government site (and there are others): 440m, 481m. For Hunlen, 260m and 396m (quite a difference, huh?). Helmcken Falls wikipage says, citing wellsgray.ca, a private/community (NGO) site:

. The falls are the fourth highest in Canada[1] and, with a 141 m (463 ft) drop.

Fourth highest after what other three? Takkakaw Falls, which is in BC also, says on its page:

Its highest point is 384 m (1260 feet), making it the second-highest officially measured waterfall in western Canada, after Della Falls on Vancouver Island. However its true "free-fall" is only 254 m.

"Officialy measured" is the key phrase; other waterfalls can be more remote, less visible, and have no names, nor anyone needing to measure them; but even without that consideration there's Della and Hunlen and Takkakaw ahead of Shannon Falls. Basically put, I think there's got to be a WP:grain of salt guideline for recognizing unrelaible "primary sources". Maybe if the BC Parks bunch were hiring actual geographers instead of marketing-trained business graduates the data would be reliable; it's not . I suspect the Water Rights Branch - of the same ministry no less (Environment) may have precise data on waterfalls amid its many bits of watercours data on licenses. Anyway I'm gonna go have a look at topos of my "pet waterfalls"; one thing I'm against is invalid bumpf; shows up way too much in all publications, not just Wikipedia, which makes the mistake of taking things at face value from some sites; simply because something is a government reference doesn't mean it's true; often quite the opposite, for a variety of reasons ranging from ignorance to ulterior motives to hype. BTW just checked Crown Lake, looks to be only 200m, and it's broken into two falls....but in the course of looking this up it turns out he provincial gazette distinguishes between "Waterfall", "Falls" and "Cascade". Shannon is a "falls", Hunlen is a "waterfall". here is my sandbox for the watefalls list; I'll be making a table with heights (max. individual cascade and total), category (watefall, falls, cascade) and latlong, region etc......Only A through C yet, and B I've got to dig deeper for; some like Big Falls Creek have no "falls" listed but the name makes it obvious.....Skookum1 (talk) 03:30, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

See also notes of other tallest falls of BC talk page at WikiProject Geography of Canada SriMesh | talk 04:21, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Skookum, don't read a whole lot into the delimitation of "Waterfall", "Falls" and "Cascade" on part of the Provincial Government. The categories have virtually nothing at all to do with the actual form and / or stature of the waterfall. Those entries which are marked as "Cascade" are so marked simply because the name includes the word Cascade. Both Magnificent Cascade and Oreamnos Cascade are just as steep as Shannon Falls and about 80% of Zwerger Cascade's fall is vertical. Likewise, Skutz Falls is more rapids than waterfall but it's classified as a "Falls", Butedale Falls is closer in form to what would usually be termed a Cascade than it is a "Falls" and so on. So the 'official' title should not be seen to be truly representative of the features at all.

Secondly, I agree the whole "officially" measured thing holds very little ground because as we all know, governments are far from accurate and efficient in most regards. And as there doesn't appear to have ever been a concerted effort to actually map and measure waterfalls by any government body (Canadian, US or other), the little data which the government has compiled is going to be glaringly incomplete. However, data adopted by government geographic surveys generally seems to stem from relatively accurate sources (most of the time), so whether or not the BC Parks Department is correct in citing Shannon Falls as #3 in BC, the basis for their claim may not necessarily be wrong - just a product of having incomplete and inaccurate information from which to base it off of.

Bryan Swan | World Waterfall Database (talk) 05:04, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Location?

Good to see this picturesque location included here.

However, the location map isn't very helpful as I couldn't make out the location on it without expanding it. Suggest using a small scale...Vancouver to Whistler? If you're thinking about visiting Shannon Falls you will likely know where those places are.

--174.7.56.10 (talk) 16:50, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

For a long time I've maintained that regional maps are more useful for nearly anything in BC, the province-wide map's vagueness isn't helpful, but they're not meant as travel guides. The exact locality is Darrell Bay; there's a map on here but "too close" as a regional map; a maps of the Hwy 99 corridor from Horseshoe Bay to Pemberton would have a lot of applications; mapmakers for BC are scarce, I'd have made a bunch by now if I was any good at it.....Skookum1 (talk) 01:10, 29 November 2014 (UTC)