Take A Hike

Wallace Falls

I decided to go for a hike on Friday and at first I planned on going out to the coast but I woke up late so it didn't make much sense so I decided to find something closer by. I wanted something with a destination, something that you hike to and not just a loop trail. A quick search on the intertubularwebcomputation machine came up with Wallace Falls.

It's fairly easy to find with posted signs along the road as well as plenty of parking. I can see how this trial would be popular on a nice day. Last Friday was an overcast sky and had been raining in the morning so there were only around 10 cars in the lot when I got there. You first walk onto the trial under two sets of massive power lines buzzing above your head, which is a little disappointing. Soon though, you make a turn into the forest where the buzz is replaced by the rushing sound of the river. You quickly come to a junction where you can either continue along the river to the falls or you can go along the longer path which was the old rail grade for the logging camp which takes you through the woods. I decided to take the longer path through the woods and then take the river trail on my way back.

The rail grade was pretty quiet and ever so often you could hear the sounds of the river through the trees. There was plenty of moss on the second growth threes, some of which were fairly massive. Occasionally along the the trail you will see signs indicating the location where an old logging camp or rail trestle use to be. I took a bunch of shots of the forest through this part of the trail.

The rail grade trail eventually reconnects to the trail leading to the falls which is when you start with the switch back trails up to the falls. The trail was fairly empty of people and I only passed about 6 people going up and there was one couple ahead of me that I would occasionally see but for the most part it was just myself. The first set of falls you come to are a set of 5 falls totaling 212 feet two of which can be seen from the view point. These falls are both around 50 feet but very intense spilling through small passage ways carved out in the rock.  Also from the lover view point you get a nice view of the middle falls.

The middle falls is the most impressive both for the view of the falls and the view of the valley below. The climb to the upper falls is the hardest climb of the trail going up 500 feet in 1/2 mile. As your getting up this high the under growth of the forest starts to clear and the upper falls creates a lot of mist which wafts into the forest creating a somewhat spooky feeling. There is not much of a great view of the upper falls but I still say it's worth making the trek to the top. There is a sign at the top warning hikers that they should leave themselves enough daylight to get back to the parking lot because as the sign says it take 2 hours to get back. I was a little worried because I slowly made my way up there leaving the parking lot at 1pm and I got to the top at about 4pm. I decided to take about a 15 minute break then put my camera away and took that 2 hours advisory as sort of a challenge, also I told my sister I would be at her place around 6pm. I left the upper falls at 4:15pm and started to run and trot down the trail making it to the parking lot in 40 minutes. Now I think that 2 hour advisement is a little exaggerated because even if I just walked down I could have probably done it in a little more then an hour.  But it felt good to run through the woods, running through the woods is actually one of my favorite things to do. Even on a trail each step is calculated and there are plenty of opportunities to launch yourself through the air to jump over an obstacle.I only fell once.

This was a fun short day hike and I would defiantly recommend doing it on an off day like I did. I can imaging with 100 people on the trail it would probably not be worth it because the view points and trails would probably be over crowded.

Here are some more pictures I took along the trail.