Friends of Clifty Falls State Park

Geology and The Falls

The Setting of the Park

Most of the Park is in the Big Clifty Creek watershed. Big Clifty Creek is the main stream that cuts the canyon north-to-south and drains into the Ohio River. The creek begins north of Madison near Michigan Road (IN 421), crossing west across agricultural land until it crosses IN 7 and heads south into the Park.

Glacial meltwater helped formed streams such as Big Clifty Creek. Its canyon probably began with a waterfall near and above the Ohio River and, over time, moved upstream as the waterfall’s erosive power carved out the Big Clifty Creek canyon, creating the area that is now Clifty Falls State Park and Big Clifty Falls. The river bed is home to many fossils.

The overall geology and landform here tilts to the west, so rainfall easily cuts the landscape on the “downhill” from east side into the canyon. As you can see in the diagram, the east side of the park is much wider than the west side and has several tributaries.

The important east-side tributaries of the main canyon are Little Clifty Creek, with Little Clifty Falls, Deans Branch with Tunnel Falls, and an unnamed creek informally called Hoffman Branch with Hoffman Falls. There are also several smaller cuts down into the canyon that flow with heavy rains.

The west side of the park is very different: narrow with fewer east-flowing streams. They are short and close to the rim. Most noteworthy is the very short unnamed creek that produces Wallace Falls.

If you do a rim-to-rim hike, the structural differences between the west side of the canyon and the east side become more clear through your feet.

The Park is also contains most of the Little Crooked Creek watershed. Little Crooked Creek runs along the road up from the south entrance, on the west side of the road. Above the bridge over the creek are two falls – informally called Redbud Falls on the left and Dogwood Falls on the right. Little Crooked Creek drains into Crooked Creek (emerging from the city of Madison), then onto the Ohio River, separate from Big Clifty Creek.

Black = watershed boundaries, blue = creeks (north is up). All the rainwater that falls onto that area heads to to the park - with all it carries. Note that area of the watershed on the east side is by far the largest.

The Waterfalls

The Park contains numerous waterfalls - one on the main stem, five on tributary streams, and several smaller ones down the canyon walls.

The largest waterfalls in the park are Big Clifty Falls - sometimes referred to as just "Clifty Falls" (on Big Clifty Cr.) and Little Clifty Falls (on Little Clifty Cr.). Both are at the north end (to see, start at north parking area).

Tunnel Falls (on Deans Branch) and Hoffman Falls (on Hoffman Branch) are located along the east side (to see, start at their respective parking areas).

Two waterfalls are on Little Crooked Cr. at the south entrance to the park - Redbud Falls and Dogwood Falls (note: the names are reversed in the image due to software glitch).

There are numerous other small runoff-related falls throughout the park along the canyon walls, including the named Wallace Falls (to see, park at Oak Grove Shelter and take Trail 5 down to the left, then down to Trail 2) on the west side. Others are displayed in this map as yellow/black dots.

All of the falls are primarily runoff-fed and so the most impressive flows (as seen below) come after large rainfall events. But flows are sustained even after these events at the largest falls .