Lennox Ridge Falls

Lennox Ridge Falls is accessed from the Money Creek Road near the town of Skykomish, south of Highway 2. Turn off Highway 2 onto the Old Cascade Highway at signs pointing to Money Creek Campground, which is just under 3 miles west of Skykomish and about 10-1/2 miles east of Index. After a mile turn right onto Miller River Road, then in another 300 feet turn right again onto Money Creek Road, and follow it for about 4.7 miles to where the falls are visible to the left as the road passes through a narrow canyon section of the valley. A small pullout on the opposite side of the road provides room for no more than 2 cars to park. A fairly obvious scramble path leads 50 feet down large boulders to the bank of Money Creek for a clearer view.Lennox Ridge Falls is a fairly low volume waterfall which can be seen dropping almost directly into Money Creek along an unnamed tributary stream that drains a small basin on the north side of the Northeast ridge of Lennox Mountain near Skykomish. The falls consist of two distinct steps, dropping 109 feet in all - first as a semi-veiling of 46 feet tucked into a shaded alcove, and then in a 63 foot drop which plunges and then impacts a steep ramp of bedrock and veils over a cliff immediately adjacent to roaring Money Creek. The basin producing the stream has an area of only about one-third of a square mile, so the volume of water present at any time of year will be fairly limited. However as the majority of the upper part of the drainage is along the shaded north flank of the ridge, winter snow pack should linger well through the spring and into the summer months, allowing the falls to drain off fairly consistently. By late summer however its volume will likely be very much reduced, if not entirely dried out, until the wet season returns in the autumn.Though we have not found any concrete evidence that this waterfall has ever held a historic name, we have found mention of a waterfall by the name of Katherine Falls which was identified in a 1912 Mountaineers Journal as occurring somewhere in the Money Creek drainage. The falls were visited by a party who hiked from the former railroad depot in the now vanished town of Berlin (roughly in the area where several homes now exist between Money Creek and the Miller River) to the Apex Mine in the upper Money Creek basin near Lake Elizabeth. In visiting the mine area, they would have most likely passed near this waterfall, but whether it was the feature meant to bear the name Katherine Falls is not clear (there are only so many possibilities in the Money Creek basin however, so there is a decent chance this is it). Until we have more conclusive evidence, we will continue to refer to it as Lennox Ridge Falls.