Many Rivers to Cross – Granite Falls

You’ve probably never heard of Granite Falls, you might even struggle to find it on a map, but you’ve almost certainly seen it. It appears in a cult American film. No, not Deliverance (that was filmed on four different rivers) but A River Runs Through It.

But for the adventure lover, Granite Falls is a place really well worth visiting. The river in question is the Pilchuck, and it’s only one of the many attractions of this tiny town, which has a population of only 2010.

In summer you can visit The Big Four Ice Caves – not four caves exactly, rather they are actually tunnels formed in the permanent ice of the avalanche snowfield below Big Four Mountain. The caves are beautiful but very dangerous so enjoy and photograph them from a safe distance unless a licensed guide is willing to take you on a tour. If you do tour, make sure you have goggles, gloves and ice-shoes; the sun can be blinding through the ice (literally) the gloves help you when you slip, which you will all the time, and the ice-shoes will give you some grip underfoot so that you don’t fall and break your leg. Also, watch out for roof cave-ins, which are not uncommon. Normally they’re only bits of ice falling on your head, but sometimes they are more substantial and that’s why you have to travel with a guide, in case you need to be rescued.

Near the caves is Whitehorse Mountain (6,852 feet), named because the biggest snowfield on it resembles a horse. There’s some good climbing here and if you reach the top you have a superb view across the west of Washington State.

The Monte Cristo Tunnel just outside Granite Falls is the longest tunnel (about 1,500 feet) on the abandoned Monte Cristo Railroad, built in 1893. It leads to the ghost down of Monte Cristo (nothing to do with the Count of, sadly) and is one of three abandoned tunnels of the Monte Cristo Railroad. The railroad was closed in 1903 and the track was dismantled in 1936 and sold to Japan as scrap iron.

Nearby, in a cleft in the mountains, you can find 60 million year-old fossil leaves frozen into the Swauk Formation sandstone. And, of course, there’s some excellent fly fishing in the Pilchuck river!

Granite Fall photograph by quaziefoto, used under a creative commons attribution licence.

 

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