Gorge Creek Falls

Author's Comments

There are waterfalls you have to earn and waterfalls you simply pull over for, and Gorge Creek is firmly the latter. That does not make it less. The footbridge spans the gorge directly, and standing on it in late May, with the snowmelt running hard and the spray rising up through the moss-furred walls, is one of those small, almost incidental encounters that the North Cascades Highway specializes in. The falls drop two hundred and forty feet into a slot so narrow and so green it reads almost tropical. I have stood on that bridge in early morning and again at midday and the light does not matter as much as you would think, because the gorge itself is mostly in shadow and the water is the subject. What matters is volume. Come in spring, when the creek is loud and the mist coats everything. By late summer the flow softens and the falls become a quieter, more delicate thing, which has its own appeal if you are after detail work and longer exposures. A tripod helps. The bridge gives a little under foot traffic, so wait for a gap and brace well. Look down rather than out - the gorge below the falls, with its mossed boulders and the creek threading away toward the Skagit, is the photograph most people miss because they are pointed the other way. Mind your footing. The deck stays wet for most of the season, and the rails are lower than you remember.

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