Snow Gulch Falls

Whitehorse Mountain is one of the most imposing peaks in the North Cascades, looming 6,000 feet over the town of Darrington. The north face of the mountain features two prominent drainages which split the meltwater from the So-Bahli-Ahli Glacier. Snow Gulch is the westernmost of the two drainages, and can be seen prominently from Highway 530, and though several waterfalls can be picked out braiding down the mountainside from the highway, none can be clearly or easily singled out from a distance. Snow Gulch Falls is, for the time being at least, the name we're associating with the lowermost of the falls along the main drainage in the basin. The falls drop 71 feet from a narrow chute along a bedrock sill, spraying into a small amphitheater at the bottom of the mountainside. There appears to be an upper tier to the falls which we were unable to properly survey on our first visit to the falls due to time constraints. Imagery displayed on Google Earth clearly shows multiple additional waterfalls on the stream not very far above Snow Gulch Falls. Whether they should be grouped in with this waterfall and considered one series of waterfalls is not yet clear. Of other note in the area, at the end of the trail to the basin the Sam Grabe Mine can be seen. Since the timber supports for the tunnel have long since rotted and collapsed, and the mine is partially flooded, it is highly dangerous to enter the mine - look from the entrance only.