Dryad Fall

Success , Coos County, NH , USA

No Known Alternate Names

Dryad Fall (or Dryad Falls as it appears on the map, both terms are acceptable) is the taller sister to Giant Falls. According to the Bolnick's excellent "Waterfalls of the White Mountains", it is a 400' drop. Topo maps don't bear this out, but it is over 300' in height. The drainage basin is tiny, so unless it is in full snowmelt, or after heavy rains (when I did the trip) you may wish to travel elsewhere for your waterfalling enjoyment. The falls drop 25' over the upper tier, dally for a moment in a tea colored pool about 2 feet deep, then slide over the rim of the 300' remainder of the falls. The gradually sloping rock is no place to play around. A slip here would give you a fairly long time to think about your mistake before you careened down the steep cliff face to the bottom. All kidding aside, a fall here would certainly be fatal, so please take care around the falls.

First, plan your trip to coincide with high water, preferably after a few days of steady rain, otherwise, you are likely to be attempting to take a photograph of a tall wet cliff. You'll need a fairly wide range of focal lengths here, 300mm or better for the first glimpse of the falls, and 28mm for the upper tier. For the long shot of Dryad Fall, you'll likely need a UV filter as the falls are still better than a mile away. A warming filter and polarizing filter will serve you well too. You will need your tripod for the telephoto shots.

The access is straighforward, if a little long. On North Road in Shelburne, there is a small parking lot adjacent to the Austin Mill Brook bridge. There is a mill dam easily seen from the road, so visual confirmation is easy. Got though the white turnstile, then start up the trail. For the majority of the length, you will be walking on a smooth dirt road. At about the 1.7 mile mark, you can see Dryad Fall veiling down the cliff to your left. You have about another mile to go, the steepest part of the trip. Following Austin Brook Trail, it steepens, bending to the left. There is a broken sign at a trail junction that indicates Dryad Fall, Dream Lake, and Peabody Brook. This trail moves west (left) and the falls are reached in about 4/10 of a mile. You'll see a sign on a tree designating the spur trail to the falls. The trail comes out at the base of the 25' upper tier.

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