Baatara gorge waterfall

The Baatara gorge sinkhole (Balaa gorge waterfall) is a waterfall in the Tannourine, Lebanon^[1] near Balaa.

The waterfall drops 255 metres (837 ft) into the Baatara Pothole, a cave of Jurassic limestone^[2] located on the Lebanon Mountain Trail.^[3] The cave is also known as the Cave of the Three Bridges.^[4] Traveling from Laklouk to Tannourine one passes the village of Balaa, and the Three Bridges Chasm (in French Gouffre des Trois Ponts) is a five-minute journey into the valley below where one sees three natural bridges, rising one above the other and overhanging a chasm descending into Mount Lebanon. During the spring melt, a 90–100-metre (300–330 ft) cascade falls behind the three bridges and then down into the 240-metre (790 ft) chasm.^[5]

Discovered to the western world in 1952 by French bio-speleologist Henri Coiffait,^[6] the waterfall and accompanying sinkhole were fully mapped in the 1980s by the Spéléo club du Liban.^[7] A 1988 fluorescent dye test demonstrated that the water emerged at the spring of Dalleh in Mgharet al-Ghaouaghir^[8][9] (located near Balaa).