Baatara Gorge Waterfall (Balaa)

WaterfallsTannourine, Kuzey Lübnan,Lebanon

A Lebanese waterfall that drops through three natural stone bridges stacked one above the other, then disappears into a limestone shaft 240 metres deep.

September·Quiet month

Jun–Nov

The shaft is dry: three moss-green bridges stand over a silent 240-metre hole, orange and grey limestone below. The falls are gone until next spring — but roads are clear, the rock is dry, and this is the easiest, safest time to walk down.

Year-round The three stacked stone bridges and the 240-metre limestone shaft stand every day of the year; the waterfall itself runs only on snowmelt, and the plateau around it can lie deep under snow through winter.

The Baatara Gorge Waterfall, at Balaa near Tannourine in northern Lebanon, is a waterfall that drops through three natural stone bridges stacked one above the other in the same wall of limestone and then disappears into a shaft 240 metres deep, a sinkhole in a green pasture of the Mount Lebanon plateau that is walked to from the road and looked down into from the rim. The pothole is a shaft dissolved through the Jurassic limestone by the stream, and the three arches are what remain of the roof at three levels the water cut in turn as it deepened; at the plateau's edge the ground simply ends, pasture running right to the lip and the limestone falling away into the void, and a steep path drops to the level of the middle bridge, where the arches stack one behind another and the water pours past them into the dark. The water goes in and is simply gone: in 1988 a dye test traced it to the spring at Dalleh, six kilometres away, where it comes out into the Kadisha valley. The snowmelt off the peaks above Balaa drives the fall to its fullest in March and April, when a cascade of ninety to a hundred metres pours down behind the three bridges, and the flow thins through May and can fail early after a dry winter, so that in summer the shaft is dry and the arches stand alone. Baatara reached the outside world only in 1952, through Henri Coiffait, a French scientist who studied the animals that live in caves and came hunting beetles, not a climber or a photographer. The sinkhole lies directly on the Lebanon Mountain Trail, the long-distance path down the spine of the country, and walking the plateau from Tannourine gives it back its context, with the cedar forest of Tannourine and the Kadisha valley on either side. Baatara is a waterfall that falls through three bridges into a hole, and the water comes out somewhere else.

Worth knowing

Good to know

The falls follow the snowline, not the calendar — after a thin, warm winter the flow can be spent by late March, so check recent photos before making the drive.
A shaft this deep only takes direct sun near midday — earlier, the bridges and the falling water sit in flat shadow.
Limestone turns greasy where the spray lands — the descent is steep and the edges above the drop are unfenced, so wet moss underfoot is the real hazard here.

Things to do

1
Watch the waterfall from beneath the three bridges
Follow the steep path down to the level of the middle bridge, where the arches stack one behind another and the water drops past them into the dark. The stone is wet, the noise is constant, and the far wall of the shaft rises well above your head — it is the angle nearly every photograph of Balaa is taken from.
2
See the whole shaft open up from the rim
At the plateau's edge the ground simply ends: green pasture runs right to the lip, and past it the limestone falls away into a 240-metre void. This is the one spot where you can take in the size of the hole all at once, before the path leads you down inside it.
3
Trace the three levels the water cut
The arches do not hang at random: they sit at three distinct heights in the same wall of limestone, one above the next. Standing beneath them you are reading a cross-section of the mountain — and seeing how much rock the water has taken out of it.
4
Walk the Lebanon Mountain Trail past the gorge
The sinkhole lies directly on the Lebanon Mountain Trail, and walking the plateau gives it back its context. There is open pasture and bare limestone, sheep tracks, and the gorge reappearing at a new angle each time you come back to the rim.

Watch

Nearby

27 km