Nooksack Falls

The safety talk comes first, because here it matters. At least 11 people have died at Nooksack Falls since the 1940s, nearly all after climbing past the fences and warning signs onto spray-slicked rock. The most recent was March 2025, and in July 2023 a 24-year-old went over the falls and survived only because a Navy helicopter pulled her out 100 yards downstream. The fenced viewpoint shows you everything. Stay behind it.

That said, this is the easiest big waterfall payoff on the corridor, and we point nearly every guest here. About 7.4 miles east of Glacier, turn off the highway onto Wells Creek Road and follow the gravel 0.6 mile to the parking area; the viewpoint is a very short walk from the car. The falls drop 88 feet where Wells Creek meets the North Fork Nooksack, and the site ran a hydroelectric plant for over 80 years, until 1997. No parking pass needed.

It slots neatly into a drive up to Artist Point — ten minutes of your day for the best roadside waterfall on the highway.

Know before you go

• Stay behind the chain-link fence. Every fatality here involved climbing past it.
• No parking pass required; the walk from the lot is short and flat.
• The gravel spur can be potholed — fine for regular cars in summer, snowy and icy in winter.
• The road beyond the falls toward Cougar Divide is closed at the bridge, but the falls viewpoint itself is open, with no USFS alerts as of August 2026.