On June 25th, I somehow talked my friends, Shelly and John, into to hiking Wallace Falls with me. I sent them a link a few days prior and then we were off. Let’s just say we aren’t exactly ‘serious’ hikers. We get the job done, but in our own time. We have to start off with a trip to Starbucks…honestly, who can go hiking with an awesome well shaken, unsweetened black tea (or in John’s case a Green Tea Frap)…not us!
My first mistake of the day was deciding to take my tea with me. It didn’t occur to me that I’d be carrying the cup all day and thankfully I didn’t have to because John is a gentleman and he carried it most of the way. Another piece of our hiking pie is stopping and taking pictures. In my case, sometimes I stopped to take pictures just because I was exhausted and needed a break. Even though I had sent John and Shelly a link about the hike, I had never actually read it myself and that’s probably a good thing because I may have chickened out.
I took 190+ pictures that day, but only posted the best on my Flickr account. I’m not really into taking pictures of people, so in case you were hoping to get a glimpse of our sweaty, exhausted faces/bodies…sorry…and, you are welcome. 🙂
As for the trail itself, it’s very nice. We opted to take the Woody Trail in, which is a slightly more difficult route. It meanders down towards the river and then back up towards Lower Falls (which we actually thought were Middle Falls). Along the way I got some great stream/river shots near the foot bridge. Shortly before making it to Lower Falls the trail junctions to meet up with the rail-road grade which we took in order to hit the only bathroom along the trail. I was very impressed by the composting toilet…you potty’d and then added a little sawdust. Even though I was impressed, I was a bit afraid to think of where that compost might be used. We then backtracked to catch Woody Trail again to hit the Lower Falls view point.
We ate our lunch at Lower Falls surrounded by waterfalls, chipmunks, and plenty of other hikers. We then decided we should drag our tired behinds up to Middle Falls. Luckily we had already decided Upper Falls wasn’t in the cards for this trip. Middle Falls was mystical. I loved the fog-like quality of the mist from the falls and the intensely green color of the moss on the rocks. Turns out taking the old logging rail-road grade back was a cake walk in comparison. At the very end I took the opportunity to get some pretty shots of some Foxglove.
By the end of the hike, even though we were very tired, we decided we should try another hike again the next weekend. My grand plan is to see if we can get a hike (or other outdoor adventure) in every week for the entire summer. Wallace Falls was a start.
By the way, in our non-serious hiker way of doing everything we ended the day with a stop at Dairy Queen for dipped ice cream cones…yummy!
Notes of interest about Wallace Falls (Lower and Middle Falls):
- Discover Pass required as of 7/1/11. Can be purchased at the same locations as fishing licenses.
- No garbage cans along the trail.
- Composting toilet near Lower Falls.
- Covered picnic table at Lower Falls.
- Woody Trail is more rugged. Rail-road grade is probably a better option for small children.