Bear Creek Falls

Bear Creek Falls is the lowermost of the waterfalls along the North Fork Skykomish River northeast of the town of Index in the Wild Sky area of the North Cascades (not quite within the wilderness itself though). The falls consist of several small punchbowls and plunges where the river constricts through a narrow granite gorge, culminating in three drops totaling 25 feet in height that empty into a huge pool, producing an enormous boiling churn of bubbles. The exact height of each of the three major drops will actually vary considerably depending on how high the river is running. During low water the upper two drops are the tallest, each falling about 8-9 feet, but when the volume of the river climbs up the water basically backs up in the gorge and floods the upper tiers, increasing the height of the lower tier. On our most recent survey it had increased to 17 feet in height, with the two upper tiers split down to about 4 feet each. The volume of the river is quite deceptive when viewing the falls, since the water is all constricted through a canyon 20-30 feet wide at most, yet downstream of the plunge pool it spreads out to almost 200 feet wide, giving the illusion that much of the river just bubbles out of the ground at the falls. On a note regarding access, the trail which leads down to the falls ends on bare rocks near the top of the gorge, and accessing the best views of the falls will require scrambling downstream on rocks which have some pretty big gaps to surmount, and are polished smooth enough that climbing can be a bit tricky. Be very careful along the edge of the river itself, because slipping in could easily prove fatal considering how violent some of the river's action is.Bear Creek Falls does indeed occur on the North Fork Skykomish River. It was named such because Bear Creek empties into the river immediately next to the falls and is the most prominent landmark in the immediate area. The falls were photographed and documented at least as early as 1912. The specific date of discovery is not known, but is likely within a few years of the earliest photographs, if that.