Visiting Cowley State Fishing Lake Waterfall in Southeast Kansas

Back in 2014, an article on Yahoo Travel listed the Cowley State Fishing Lake waterfall as one of the 12 most beautiful waterfalls in the US.

Shae and I love visiting waterfalls – here are all the ones we’ve seen so far on our road trip – so there was no way we were going to miss out on this one in southeast Kansas.

We’re currently staying in Wichita, so yesterday we drove the ~75 minutes to Cowley State Fishing Lake to check out the waterfall. It’s not too obvious how to get to the waterfall once you’re at the lake, so here’s how to find it.

When you arrive at the Cowley State Fishing Lake, take an immediate right (there’s a sign directing you that way to the waterfall), then continue straight up the road rather than turning left when you see another sign pointing to the waterfall.

Continue following this road but be careful of the potholes along the way. You’ll pass a couple of picnic areas, as well as a small restroom building.

Keep driving up the road all the way to the end where there’s a circular parking lot.

Other than the two waterfall signs you’ll have driven past already, there are no other signs pointing the way to the waterfall. If you head to the edge though, you’ll be able to see it.

You can get much closer to the waterfall though. There isn’t an official trail, although there is a semi-worn path you can follow.

It’s worth wearing sturdy shoes as you’ll have to do some clambering over rocks. If it’s been raining, it’s also likely to be muddy in parts.

Keep an eye out as you walk down as there was some barbed wire crossing the route we took.

The path will head down and around to the left. After less than 1/4 mile, you’ll reach a stream and will be able to see the waterfall in the distance.

Continue following the path alongside the stream. You’ll have to clamber over some more rocks as you get closer, but it’s not too strenuous.

There are several large rocks in the stream, so you can make your way out to view the waterfall from a different angle.

Depending on how high the water level is, you should be able to cross to the other side without getting your shoes too wet. We visited a couple of days after it had rained and snowed, so I’m guessing there was more water the day we visited in January than if you were to visit in the summer.

I don’t know if it’s because the waterfall is somewhat hidden or because we visited on a Monday afternoon in January, but we had the waterfall all to ourselves.

Despite it being cold out, Truffles decided she wanted to wade around in the water for a while.

Due to the recent snow, we hadn’t taken Truffles on a walk for a couple of days. She therefore wanted to go on a hike, so she led the way uphill to explore some more. I was glad she did as it meant we got a different view of the waterfall. It might be possible to make your way out to the rock ledge below to get closer to the waterfall’s edge, but we didn’t explore that far.

One of the nice features of the waterfall’s location is that it’s pretty well protected from the wind. There were strong gusts the day we visited, but we couldn’t feel them down there.

After hanging out at the waterfall for an hour, we headed back up the path. We’d considered going for a walk along the lake, but decided against it as the wind was much stronger there. It looked like a beautiful place to go for a walk in better weather though.

Final Thoughts

The waterfall at Cowley State Fishing Lake is beautiful. With a fairly shallow stream at the base, it’s nice you can cross over to view it from both sides. We also loved that it was completely deserted the day we visited, meaning we had it all to ourselves.

I’m not sure if I’d put it in a list of my top 12 waterfalls like Yahoo Travel did, but it’s definitely worth checking out if you’re visiting southeast Kansas or north Oklahoma.

Address

Cowley State Fishing Lake, Arkansas City, KS 67005