Upper Purdue Falls

RATING - 26.4

VR - 3.6 (Sm/M) HR - 4.0 SR - 12/20

TYPE OF APPROACH - Bushwhack

DIFFICULTY - Fairly Difficult

LOCATION - Mt. Baker Rec Area

TYPE - Fan

HEIGHT - 90'

WIDTH - 15'

ELEVATION - 4123'

GPS - N 48 43.282' W 121 51.607

DIRECTIONS - Take the Park Butte trail from the end of FR 13. In around 3 miles the trail will fork with the left hand fork heading up to the lookout and the right heading down to Mazama Park. Follow the trail to Mazama Park, through the meadows, and into the woods towards Bell Pass. The falls are a short distance off the trail and you should be able to hear it from there. Take a GPS just to make sure and be careful at the edge of the canyon.

Upper Purdue Falls is a fan shaped waterfall about 90' in height located along Ridley Creek. When the creek has a good volume of water in it, this is a beautiful waterfall. When it's running low it isn't much to look at.

The best time to visit would probably be in early July when the road to the Bell Pass Trailhead has just opened for the year (South Fork Nooksack Road), but that road tends to washout a lot and get shut down. By the time the Park Butte Trail melts out for the year, the creek is starting to get low in volume, but there is probably a month or so where access is pretty easy and the volume is decent.