MURPHY CREEK FALLS

VR - 6 (Medium)               HR - 7                  SR - 8/20

TYPE OF APPROACH - Bushwhack

DIFFICULTY - Difficult

LOCATION - Darrington Area

TYPE - Tiered

HEIGHT - 263'

WIDTH - 25'

GPS - N48 08.555 W121 26.313

ELEVATION - 1366'

Murphy Creek Falls is a tall, complex, multi-tiered waterfall located at the bottom of a deep canyon south of Darrington.  The waterfall begins with a pretty 50' tall horsetail that spreads out to 25' wide in places.  The creek then drops over the beautiful 67' tall main drop.  The creek then continues to drop over a 122' tall series of cascades that features, among other drops, a cool side-by-side pair of roostertails and a super cool bowtie shaped finale.  The final tier is a pretty 24' tall horsetail with a huge log stuck right in the middle of the drop.  The total height is 263'.  The waterfall is really pretty, but like many creeks in the area, a large number of logs have become trapped in the creek around the individual tiers.  It's disappointing, but the waterfall is still really nice.

I suspected this waterfall for several years before I finally visited.  A couple things surprised me about the waterfall.  I expected the entire waterfall to be over 200' tall, but I had hoped it was the upper tier followed by one large plunge.  While that was a slight disappointment, the volume of the creek was much higher than I hoped so those two sort of evened each other out.  This is a pretty tough waterfall to get to, but it's worth the effort.

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