Thunder Creek is a stream located entirely within North Cascades National Park and the

Ross Lake National Recreation Area Ross Lake National Recreation Area is a US national recreation area in north central Washington just south of the Canada–US border. It is the most accessible part of the North Cascades National Park Complex which also includes North Cascades ...

in the US state of

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 o ...

. Thunder Creek runs in a northerly direction most of its route starting from just north of Park Creek Pass in the south district of North Cascades National Park and ending at

Diablo Lake Diablo Lake is a reservoir in the North Cascade mountains of northern Washington state, United States. Created by Diablo Dam, the lake is located between Ross Lake and Gorge Lake on the Skagit River at an elevation of above sea level. Diablo La ...

in Ross Lake National Recreation Area. Prior to the construction of the

Diablo Dam Diablo Dam is one of three dams along the upper Skagit River in Whatcom County, Washington and part of the Skagit River Hydroelectric Project that supplies Seattle with some of its power needs. The dam was built in Diablo Canyon, a gorge of solid g ...

, Thunder Creek emptied into the

Skagit River The Skagit River ( ) is a river in southwestern British Columbia in Canada and northwestern Washington in the United States, approximately 150 mi (240 km) long. The river and its tributaries drain an area of 1.7 million acres (690,000& ...

. A popular hiking trail parallels Thunder Creek its entire length. Thunder Creek is well known for having a turquoise appearance from the suspended silt and

rock flour Rock flour, or glacial flour, consists of fine-grained, silt-sized particles of rock, generated by mechanical grinding of bedrock by glacial erosion or by artificial grinding to a similar size. Because the material is very small, it becomes suspe ...

caused by runoff from dozens of glaciers, including the largest glacier in the park,

Boston Glacier Boston Glacier is located in a large cirque below several mountain peaks in North Cascades National Park in the U.S. state of Washington. Approximately long but nearly wide, it is the largest glacier in North Cascades National Park. Extending in ...

, which feeds Skagit Creek, a tributary stream.

References

Rivers of Washington (state) North Cascades National Park {{Washington-river-stub