Devils Hill Falls

I first learnt of the Devils Hill Falls from a posting to Facebook with photos by the talented musician and avid outdoorsman Adam Young, last year if memory serves, and which I am now unable to locate (Facebook is impossibly poor at non-recent information retrieval); prior to that post, I had neither heard of them nor seen any references to them. Since I became aware of them, they have been on my hiking to-do list and were one of the primary motivations for swinging around to Louisbourg on the return trip from Meat Cove; I have also discovered other mentions of them, e.g., here, here, and here.

New Boston Road, which I had not previously driven, has two junctions with the Louisbourg Highway (Highway 22), one southeast of Albert Bridge and one west of Catalone, both clearly marked by highway signs; you want the one nearest Catalone (at GPS 45°59.270'N 59°59.734'W). From there, drive west for 3 km (1.9 mi), and you will be at Devils Hill Road (at GPS 45°58.802'N 60°01.775'W), where a square wooden sign hand-lettered in white paint reading “Devil’s Hill Rd Waterfall” is nailed to a white birch on the left side of the road. Devils Hill Falls is a very short 250 m/yds hike up that road, which climbs gently; while you might drive it in a truck (I wouldn’t attempt it in a car), as a local I spoke with said she had done, you will be unable to turn around if you do and will then have to back down the road, so it’s considerably more hassle than it’s worth. Long before you reach the log bridge across the unnamed brook from whose waters the falls are formed, across which you will certainly not want to drive in any vehicle, you will hear the roar of the falls; a few metres/yards before the log bridge, look for a trail leading off to the left which descends to the base of the falls (stay left on this trail and you’ll have a much easier descent—I didn’t see the alternate path until I tried to return, so I had a mostly seat-of-the-pants trip down). You will then find yourself at the base of the falls, seen in photo #1. The falls as seen here are rather different in shape than they appear in the photos on the referenced web pages; that is because those photos were taken from a different vantage point further away that I didn’t notice, which captured more of the brook’s descent; what is seen in photo #1 is the bottom half of what is visible in those photos.

Photo #2 is much the same view as in photo #1, but taken a bit further back from the falls and showing more of the area above, but still too close to see the course of the brook there. The pool at the base of the falls can here be seen emptying via a flume in the lower left half of the photo. The lovely yellow leaves add their gold to the white of the falls, making for a lovely composition.

[continued below]

Photo #3 shows the upper portion of the flume descending from the pool below the falls; its waters were rushing crazily down the narrow channel, white from the churning over the rocks beneath.

Photo #4 shows the lower portion of the flume, as it widens out at its bottom, forming a small cascade before continuing its flow at a much less rushed pace through the woods. It empties into the Catalone River about 700 m (0.4 mi) downstream of the falls.