Olney Falls

Drive east from Monroe to Kellogg Lake Road, immediately east of the town of Startup. About 500 feet up the road from US 2 is a gated logging road on the right. Park here, being sure not to block the gate, and walk along the road for about 1 ½ miles to the falls.Olney Falls is a series of plunges and cascades along Olney Creek where the stream descends through a narrow gorge in the process of reaching the floor of the Skykomish River valley. The falls drop a total of 65 feet in five or six distinct steps, depending on how much water is present in the creek. The largest individual drop is about 20 feet. The cliffs lining the gorge on either side of the falls rise as much as 150 feet out of the streambed, towering above the surrounding landscape. Though the area around the falls has been extensively logged, the gorge itself remains quite verdant. Olney Falls has a storied history, ranging from being used as a power source for early logging operations, to the location of a flume used to transport trees felled and floated down the creek. The falls are situated on State owned land, managed by the Department of Natural Resources, and the surrounding area has been extensively logged over the last century. But despite being located just a few miles away from neighboring Wallace Falls, Olney Falls is largely overlooked due to the lack of any sort of recognition of the falls as a landmark (other than on topographic maps). Olney Creek is a large stream which drains from an area of approximately 19 square miles upstream from the falls, and typically swells to a river-sized volume during the winter and spring months.