Tamolitch Blue Pool

Once a majestic waterfall, the McKenzie River has changed course and gone underground a few miles up stream. The river only flows over the falls a few times a year, the rest of the time the water emerges from the rocks underwater in the basin of waterfall pool.

Blue Pool, also known as Tamolitch Pool, is where the McKenzie River seeps to the surface through underground lava fields that flowed across the landscape eons ago.

The water is so pure that it’s eerily deceptive. When water is that pure, the depth is often misjudged. For anyone who has visited Blue Pool will agree that the water only appears to be, at most, five feet deep. The rocks that rest on the bottom of the pool’s earthen floor seem to be so close that you can almost touch them by merely sticking your arm into the water. The true depth of Blue Pool is 30 feet!

The water from Blue Pool comes from underground where it has been purified by the rocks and sediment underneath the surface of the Earth. It’s constantly in circulation from its underground source. This also explains why the water is so cold; it comes fresh from underground. When water is that cold, it makes it difficult for organisms to survive.

The Tamolitch Falls, now a seasonal waterfall, once had a constant flow on the McKenzie River. In the 1960s, water was diverted for hydroelectric use from the stream above the falls; that section of the stream, as well as the falls, ceased to flow except during periods of heavy runoff or when water was diverted from the dams upstream. When this is not the case, the stream goes underground and now emerges below the falls. At the base of the former falls is the Tamolitch Blue Pool.

My husband is holding on to a tree with one hand and my backpack with the other as I am leaning out over the edge to get this shot. All the information about this pool is in the following image.

Blue Pool, also known as Tamolitch Pool, is where the McKenzie River seeps to the surface through underground lava fields that flowed across the landscape eons ago.

I have a photo of the Tamolitch waterfall in my waterfalls album. You only get to see the falls at certain times of the years. It was worth slogging through slush and snow to see the waterfall dropping into the pool.