Pearl Falls

Pearl Falls is a remote waterfall on the southwest face of Mount Rainier in Washington and among the highest in Mount Rainier National Park. About halfway along Pearl Creek, a glacial stream in a steep canyon, it drops roughly 400 feet over a sheer cliff of columnar basalt, including nearly 200 feet in a single unbroken plunge, before continuing in smaller cascades below. Its amphitheater-like basin and main plunge have invited comparison to nearby Comet Falls, and the basalt cliff likely formed from cooled eruptions of Mount Rainier. Tacoma photographer Albert Henry Barnes named it in 1912 for spray that looked like pearls in the right light.

Ashford, Washington · United States