About Narada Falls
Narada Falls was Julie’s favorite waterfall in Mt Rainier National Park. That was saying something considering that I could have argued in favor of Comet Falls or Spray Falls.
The key features that impressed Julie were its width and that there seemed to be a variety of ways to experience the falls. We even visited at a time when a rainbow appeared in its mist before its long and wide drop, which was said to be 241ft high. It was also a very easy waterfall to visit as it was right besides a large car park. However, we had to make a somewhat steep but short walk to get to the lower viewpoints for a more frontal view of its main tier (as shown in the photo at the top of this page).
Speaking of which, the car park view gave us a look at the smaller upper tier of the waterfall as well as a precipitous canyon view backed by sharp peaks in the distance. A pedestrian bridge arched over this upper tier, which allowed us to see the brink of the main tier as well as the tiny people further below providing us with a sense of how much of a descent we had to make if we wanted to join them for those desired frontal views.
The main viewing area in front of the falls, which probably required us about 5-10 minutes down and double that one the way back up, was consistently sprayed by mist during our visit. While this mist produced a pretty and bold rainbow, it also made some parts of the viewing area muddy and slippery.
The trail continued further downhill beyond the main viewing area, which I took some time to explore at the advice of a local I met at Spray Falls the day before. That was when I noticed a side trail leading closer to the rushing creek. There appeared to be some infrastructure discouraging the use of this trail, but with enough evidence of people proceeding anyways, I went ahead and followed it to yet another different, more angled perspective of the main tier of Narada Falls.
I’ll leave it up to you and your conscience to see whether you want to do the same and go past the barricade. Interestingly enough, one of the interpretive signs of Narada Falls showed a photo of it from this vantage point. Go figure…
The large and well-signposted car park for Narada Falls is about 13 miles east of the Nisqually Entrance. For more info on getting to the Nisqually Entrance, see the Comet Falls page.
As for geographical context, the Nisqually Entrance of Mt Rainier was 86 miles (supposedly under 2 hours drive) from Seattle and 50 miles (supposedly a little over an hour drive) from Puyallup. Of course with all the traffic restrictions and traffic lights, the reality was that it took at least 30-60 minutes more than what I’m quoting above.
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Top down sweep starting with the bridge and one of the upper tiers of the falls then ending at the brink of the main tier showing the lower viewpoint in context. This is filmed from near the car park
Bottom up sweep of the main tier of the falls starting with its base and rainbow then ending at its top
Bottom up sweep of the falls as seen from one of the lower unofficial vantage points providing a more angled and unusual perspective of the falls
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