Canyon Falls is a 42-foot tiered cascade on the South Fork Skykomish River in Snohomish County, Washington, between Eagle Falls upstream and Sunset Falls downstream. It sits on private land that has been closed to the public for years, and several people floating the calm water above it have died after being swept over.
The falls
The river drops 26 feet over a heavily sculpted outcrop of reddish granite into a long, narrow gorge, for 42 feet in two drops across a channel averaging about 25 feet wide. Wikipedia counts three tiers of about 40 feet in all: a 20-foot plunge followed by two rough cascades. Fed partly by glaciers, the river runs all year, with an average high flow of 2,427 cubic feet per second.
Getting there
Canyon Falls is on private property and closed to public access. It is posted, landowners have installed security systems, and visiting without permission is not advised. Snohomish County's river access inventory also marks the site as private. No public trail or overlook is documented.
When to go
The flow is year-round.
On site
The river is calm just above and below the falls, and people floating on inner tubes or rafts have been swept over without warning, with several deaths. In 2004 a rafter died at the falls on July 4, and in August a man drowned trying to save a woman who had been carried over. Stay off this stretch of river.
History and name
In 1994 a 19-year-old was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to 30 years for pushing an intoxicated friend into the falls. The Snohomish County PUD's Sunset Falls hydropower project would have diverted a 1.1-mile reach of the river through a tunnel and reduced Canyon and Sunset Falls to a trickle; the utility cancelled it on April 10, 2018.
Nearby
Sunset Falls, also closed to the public, is about 0.7 mile away, Eagle Falls about 1.1 miles and Bridal Veil Falls about 1.9 miles. Gold Bar is the nearest town, about 8.4 miles away.
Distances are straight-line.