Pearl Falls is one of the highest waterfalls in

Mount Rainier National Park Mount Rainier National Park is an American national park located in southeast Pierce County and northeast Lewis County in Washington state. The park was established on March 2, 1899, as the fourth national park in the United States, preservi ...

in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sover ...

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on ...

. It is fed by the glacial Pearl Creek, occurring about halfway along the creek's course. The falls plunge about off a sheer columnar basalt cliff, unbroken for almost , into an amphitheater-like basin, similar in form to the main drop of nearby

Comet Falls Comet Falls is a tall waterfall located on Van Trump Creek in Pierce County, Washington. The falls are thought to be the best in the Mount Rainier region. Stature At first glance the falls drop about out of a hanging valley A v ...

. The columnar basalt was likely formed by cooled eruptions of Mount Rainier, which is a

stratovolcano A stratovolcano, also known as a composite volcano, is a conical volcano built up by many layers (strata) of hardened lava and tephra. Unlike shield volcanoes, stratovolcanoes are characterized by a steep profile with a summit crater and per ...

. Near the base, it crashes onto a rock ledge and fans out towards the left bank, before dropping again vertically onto a pile of talus and cascading downwards. It is located in a steep canyon on the southwest face of

Mount Rainier Mount Rainier (), indigenously known as Tahoma, Tacoma, Tacobet, or təqʷubəʔ, is a large active stratovolcano in the Cascade Range of the Pacific Northwest, located in Mount Rainier National Park about south-southeast of Seattle. With a s ...

. Pearl Creek drains to another glacial stream, Pyramid Creek, which parallels then flows into

Kautz Creek Kautz Creek is a tributary of the Nisqually River, flowing from the Kautz Glacier, with its watershed in the Mount Rainier National Park of Washington. It drains southwest from Mount Rainier for about before it joins the Nisqually River near Moun ...

and finally into the

Nisqually River The Nisqually River is a river in west central Washington in the United States, approximately long. It drains part of the Cascade Range southeast of Tacoma, including the southern slope of Mount Rainier, and empties into the southern end of Pu ...

. There are also more cascades below the main drop of Pearl Falls. Access to the falls is extremely difficult, requiring at least two days to reach safely on foot. However, the falls can also be seen distantly from Ricksecker Point on the Mount Rainier Highway. Pearl Falls was named in 1912 by Albert Henry Barnes, a photographer from Tacoma. He named the falls for the fact that its spray resembled pearls under the right lighting conditions. Pearl Creek presumably took its name from the falls. On Kautz Creek only a few miles to the east, is

Kautz Creek Falls Kautz Creek Falls is a waterfall on Kautz Creek in the Mount Rainier National Park in the state of Washington. It was formed when the Kautz Glacier retreated in the last 50 years, creating a series of long and slender cascades totaling about in h ...

References

Works cited * Meany, Edmond Stephen (1916). ''Mount Rainier, a Record of Exploration.'' The MacMillan Company,

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United S ...

. Waterfalls of Pierce County, Washington Waterfalls of Washington (state) Plunge waterfalls {{PierceCountyWA-geo-stub