Darrington Street in downtown Darrington, looking west toward Whitehorse Mountain

Snohomish County

Living in Darrington.

A mountain town in the North Cascades foothills, with three rivers, the Stillaguamish, Sauk and Suiattle, and three wilderness areas close by.

Photo: SounderBruce, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped.

What it is like

Darrington, from the official record.

Every fact here comes from the city, the county, WSDOT or the parks agencies. Sources are listed below.

01

Getting around

From I-5, take exit 208 and follow Highway 530 east through Arlington; the county puts the Darrington trailhead of the Whitehorse Trail about 27 miles past Arlington. The town says Seattle is 1.5 hours away. SR 530 also runs north to SR 20 and Concrete, and the Mountain Loop Scenic Byway links Darrington with Granite Falls.

Community Transit Route 230 runs to the Smokey Point Transit Center, the Zip Shuttle gets around town, and Darrington Municipal Airport is a public airfield.

02

Parks and trails

Old School Park has a pump track, a skate park and basketball and tennis courts under Whitehorse Mountain, and Harold Engles Park has disc golf in a grove of cedar and fir. The county's 82-acre Whitehorse Regional Park has three tournament ballfields and a campground with the county's first equestrian sites.

The Whitehorse Regional Trail runs more than 27 miles to Arlington for walking, biking and riding, and the Old Sauk Trail follows the Sauk River just outside town.

03

The mountains

The town sits at 550 feet, in the valley between Gold Hill and Whitehorse Mountain. The Forest Service's Darrington Ranger District covers 556,809 acres, including the Boulder River Wilderness with Whitehorse Mountain and Three Fingers, and the Sauk is a Wild and Scenic River.

The town counts more than 328 miles of hiking and horse trails nearby, with waterfalls, alpine lakes and old growth forest.

04

Known for

Darrington calls itself an authentic mountain community and a gateway to the outdoors. Gold miners came first and loggers followed, and timber is still the main industry.

The Bluegrass Music Festival comes to town every year in mid-July.

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