Trip Report: Racehorse Falls

Rainy days call for adventures close to home! On a Sunday in mid-October, the Kombucha Town team headed out to Deming, WA for a wholesome adventure in our beautiful backyard — the North Cascade Mountains. The goal? To have fun of course! Oh, and take some photos and video for an upcoming social media campaign (but we think that’s pretty fun too)

After mulling over where to go, we decided on a place none of us had ever been, a relatively unheard of spot in the foothills — Racehorse Falls.

We didn’t know much about it going in, other than the hike to the overlook of the falls is a bit more than a mile round trip - easy peasy. Or so we thought.

But before we get into that, let's talk about the reason for this whole adventure: creating content for our brand new product, Live Seltzer!

Our refreshing seltzer water is infused with raw kombucha cultures and fresh organic ingredients to create three unique flavors: Grapefruit Clarity, Ginger Energy, and Cucumber Focus. You heard us right! We have buckets of fresh ginger, grapefruit, and cucumber delivered from local organic farms to press the delicious juices that define each flavor in-house. Plus, each can comes with zero sugar, one to two calories per serving, and the fantastic benefits of kombucha.

Did we mention that this is the first Live Seltzer product ever? What we mean by that is it's the first seltzer infused with certified organic and non-GMO raw kombucha cultures.

But the very best part? We create our seltzers using deliciously crisp pure water from the North Cascade Mountains (i.e. the very home of our destination-of-the-day Racehorse Falls)!

So, this excursion was pretty much a homecoming for our seltzers (well, twelve of them anyways)!

Because this is a less popular waterfall locally, the trails are not as marked as others. What we knew from the little research we did before arriving was that the main trail goes to an overlook, but, if you look closely, there is a smaller trail that takes you down to the epic base of the falls.

The road there is easy and fairly even for a mountain road. Not too difficult! The trailhead can be hard to identify, but if you just stop where you see a bunch of cars, you'll find it quite quickly on the right.

After parking, eating some smoked salmon and getting all our gear ready, we were off! The trail was quiet and well-maintained, and we talked excitedly as we took photos and planned out shots. Everything was going great, so when we saw our first fork in the road, we took it… and ended up trekking 10 minutes in the wrong direction only to reach a dead-end. Whoops!

On the way back to the main trail, we took some more time to film and take photos. The forest surrounding Racehorse Falls is dense and full of the fern groves and mossy branches that are characteristic of the Pacific Northwest landscape. As we captured footage, the rain began sprinkling down through the trees, creating a magical atmosphere.

"I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery—air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, 'This is what it is to be happy.' "

— Sylvia Plath

The next fork ended up taking us where we wanted to go, though the route wove down a steep cliff and was lined with roots. We arrived all at once at the beautiful base of Racehorse Falls, a thundering four-tiered waterfall cascading more than 140 feet into a stunning gorge, and undoubtedly the best waterfall in Whatcom County (feel free to convince us otherwise!).

Pulling our hoods up as the rain showers thickened, we filmed more for the video, chugged some seltzer and touched some really soft moss.

We stuck around under some dense trees to take in the view for a while before heading back up. By the time we arrived back at the main trail, the trail was a steady stream of rainwater. We quickly decided to head back to our car rather than hike up to the overlook, not at all bummed because nothing could beat the majestic views below.

We hope you visit Racehorse Falls! If you do, don't forget to bring your boocha & tag us in your posts so we can see live vicariously through you and repost the photos on our account.

Enjoy the video!