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Sulphide Creek creates one of the tallest waterfalls in North America as it plunges and cascades out of practically unreachable Sulphide Lake, situated on the southeast corner of Mount Shuksan within North Cascades National Park. The creek empties from the lake into an exceptionally narrow gorge, fluming down several hundred feet before reaching a more abrupt cliff and beginning a more vertical descent, plunging over several individual but closely spaced tiers of several hundred feet each, ending almost 2200 vertical feet below the lake's outlet. This not only makes it a continentally significant waterfall for its height, but because the volume of meltwater from the Sulphide and Crystal Glaciers - the two largest on Mount Shuksan - flowing over the falls can swell to as much as an estimated 500 cubic feet per second during the hottest days of the summer, the falls are further significant for its height coupled with great volume.
Because the geology of the bedrock surrounding the falls has allowed the creek to incise heavily into the mountainside, the falls are heavily obscured from view from most angles and can only be seen from a nearly straight-on angle. Extremely thick avalanche brush and snow-stunted forest growth surround the basin at the bottom of the falls and make accessing the bottom of the falls exceptionally difficult and for all intents, impractical.
- Sulphide Creek Falls is the Unofficial name of this waterfall.
Though the falls are located not far from trails and roads, because of the rough terrain and thick forest, accessing the falls is simply impractical for most. The Baker River trail ends 2 miles away from the falls near the confluence of Sulphide Creek and the Baker River, but traveling upstream to the falls is all but futile thanks to the thick brush in the basin. A rough route exists branching off from the Shuksan Lake trail which leads to ridge-top views opposite of the falls, but thanks to floods in 2006 the roads leading to the trailhead were decomissioned, extending a strenuous 3 mile hike to over 9 miles (one way). Bottom line is we do not recommend attempting to view this waterfall unless you have extensive experience in multi-day, cross country travel in similar terrain.
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