Instead of climbing at Exit 38, we decided to head north to Wallace Falls State Park, which is near a town called Gold Bar. We had made this decision rather late in the day, and after an hour’s drive, we started our hike around 4:30pm. As it was an out and back hike, we were ready to hike as far as we could with the time we had. It would be Colby’s first long hike!
The hike follows a river upstream, taking hikers through a succession of waterfalls. It was so green and lush!! We had a great view of the valley (along the power lines unfortunately) before heading into the woods.
A map of the peaks
There’s an option to take the Woody Trail or the forest road. Of course, being the hardy hikers we are, we took the Woody Trail. Traffic on the trail in the opposite direction was quite busy at first, and we passed several hikers on the way in. We kept track of the time, and at the picnic site we checked our mileage. We were making great time and could probably get to the highest falls!
Classic shot, blocking the waterfall
As we climbed higher and closer to the waterfalls, there was a huge difference in temperature as the spray of the cool water hung in the air. The trail took us steeper at the end, ducking back away from the falls and warming up, then finally bringing hikers out to a view of the top of the Upper Falls. The Middle Falls is actually the tallest of the 3 waterfalls, and in my opinion, it’s the coolest looking.
Middle Falls
View of the valley from Middle Falls overlook
Colby was in trouble for trying to go under the railing
We had a mishap with the camera tripod that Derek wrapped around the railing! We had it all set up to take a delayed shot, when it started to slide off the railing. The camera took the shot right as it fell, capturing a look of horror on our faces! (Luckily it was caught on a tree branch, otherwise it’d have fallen 200 feet over the cliff!)
oh no!!!
I dipped my feet in the water on the way back… brr!!
Snowmelt is coooold!
The River
We made it back before dark (dark is like 10:00 here!) and in time for me to get home, eat dinner, and head off to work for the night. A nice 3 hour, 5.5 mile hike to enjoy the summer day. Colby did great! He was pooped, and I love pooped puppies : D
Oh, and check out Derek’s video of the trip, it’s great!!
We completed: 5.5 miles, 1200 feet elevation gain/descent in 3 hours
Next time:
- Leave time to play in the river
- Eat lunch at an overlook
- Try out the campground
- Trail run?
- Bring navigation tools and other supplies to do a longer hike and find Wallace Lake
I wish I had brought:
- Other than bringing nav tools for next time, I was pretty much set for this short trip!
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