Tennant Falls

Tennant Falls is a direct but very discreet neighbor to nearby Kulshan Falls. The stream which produces the falls feeds into Kulshan Creek just upstream of where the Heliotrope Ridge trail crosses, and outside of the snow melt season actually seems to contribute more water to Kulshan Creek than the main stem itself. As the stream descends down the ridge, it enters a narrow gorge via a series of small horsetails and cascading falls. The tall timber and steep brushy slope along the side of the creek hampers efforts to fully explore the extent of the falls, but the final steps are moderately easy to access. We were able to identify two primary sections of the falls, which fall 153-feet in steps of 56 and 97 feet, both in the forms of steep cascading type falls - though the upper of the two tiers starts out with a well defined horsetail type drop. Peering through the forest from the Heliotrope Ridge trail offers glimpses of more drops higher up the hillside, and it is very likely that the total height of the falls may actually approach 300-feet in all, but confirmation of such will require fairly substantial bushwhacking and scrambling. Like neighboring Kulshan Falls, Tenant Falls will flow best during the latter part of the hottest days of the summer due to its sourcing in a small portion of the Coleman Glacier which extends west along the top of Heliotrope Ridge. The cooler the temperature, the less water you will be likely to find in the creek.This waterfall has no official name, so Burlington Washington waterfall hunter and frequent collaborator Aaron Young proposed it be named for John Tennant, an early settler of the upper Nooksack River valley and one of the members of the first party to successfully summit Mount Baker in 1868.