Toketee Falls

Parking here as well as restrooms.

The 12-foot diameter redwood-stave flowline (pipeline) visible to your right is part of the Toketee development of the North Umpqua Hydrolectric Project.

Completed in December of 1949, the Toketee development was the first component of the Project to be built. The Toketee facility begins at teh earth-fill dam less than a mile upstream of Toketee Falls. The reservoir behind the dam is approximately 102 acres. Water enters an intake structure at the dam and then runs through the wood-stave flowline for 1,500 feet where it then transitions to concrete just before entering a tunnel through Deer Leap Rock. the water powers three generator turbines that have a capacity of 45 megawatts of elecricity or enough energy for approximately 22,500 homes.

Nice views of the river as it rages toward the cliff.

Carved from ancient columnar basalt, Toketee Falls drops approximately 120 feet in two stages.

With a reliable water flow on the North Umpqua River, the Toketee—a Chinook Indian name meaning graceful—avoids the seasonal fluctuations of other creek-fed waterfalls in Oregon.

The waterfall is regulated by a dam built just upstream by PacifiCorp, which now regulates and reduces the water flow over the falls. Previously the full volume of the North Umpqua River was allowed to flow over the falls, but has been reduced by a penstock that utilizes the drop of the falls to generate hydroelectricity.