Cataract Falls

Cataract Falls is really a long series of waterfalls and rapids starting near the Laurel Dell and eventually spilling into the man-made Alpine Lake.

During our visit to the falls, there were so many of these cascades that I don't have a whole lot of faith in my count as to how many there are in total (I counted 6, but Julie counted 9). Personally, I only counted what I thought were big enough to be photo-worthy, but that's totally subjective. In any case, things like this are best described by a former college roommate of mine who'd say with half annoyance and half indifference, "DETAILS!"

The trail to see Cataract Falls pretty much follows Cataract Creek alongside the falls so that means it's all uphill to see the falls before coming back if you're starting from Alpine Lake, or it's an upside down hike if you're starting from Laurel Dell. Or, if you've got time, a pair of vehicles, and some buddies to do this with, you could do this as a one-way shuttle hike.

We did this hike starting from the bottom at Alpine Lakes. And considering the quantity of falls, we ended up spending a lot more time than we anticipated for such a relatively short hike distance-wise. Our GPS records show that we hiked 4.4 miles round trip, but that might be an overestimate due to lost satellite lock in some of the forest cover. In the literature, Ann Marie Brown has it at 3.2 miles round trip while I've seen another website report the distance at 2.6 miles return.

As for the Cataract Falls themselves, I'd guess that each notable cascade (though I swear it's easy to double book some of the falls as some viewpoints are of the same cascade from a different vantage point) is between say 15ft to maybe 70ft (keep in mind this is a total guess and just our gut feeling). But if you consider the whole excursion, you could end up being waterfall-saturated.

I've heard that the falls does have a fairly short season so you probably want to time a visit here for the late Winter and Spring months, and only if the rainfall that year was at least average or above average and not long after the last rain storm. We showed up in 2010 (a heavy rainfall year) and we don't think it rained significantly for a few weeks (at least in our neck of the woods, it didn't rain for a month).

Note if you're coming from Olema, go south on Hwy 1 for about 9 miles until you see the unsigned junction with Fairfax-Bolinas Road to your left, then follow the Fairfax-Bolinas Road for about 10.6 miles to Alpine Lake where a hairpin turn has the pullouts you'll want to park your car.

Alternately, you could drive up Ridgecrest Road to the Laurel Dell Trailhead, but we didn't do this. Personally, we prefer to go uphill first from Alpine Lake anyways as opposed to going downhill first and getting all that elevation back on the way back to Laurel Dell.

[Back to top]

The trail skirts Alpine Lake

Then it starts to climb

One of the lower cascades

Another notable cascade higher up on the trail

Another one of Cataract Falls' cascades

This cascade was what I informally called the "rivuleted cascade"

After the lower set of cascades, the trail crosses over the creek via this bridge

This cascade was not far above the bridge

The trail continues to climb alongside cascades

We took a short detour to see this attractive cascade

Yet another cascade along the trail

This cascade was near the grand finale

This Cataract Falls cascade was what we determined was the grand finale (also pictured at the top of this page)

[Back to top]


Bottom up sweep of the lowest of the grand cascades we saw on this hike


Bottom up sweep of the uppermost section of the lowest of the grand cascades we saw on this hike


Bottom up sweep of what I called the rivuleted cascade


Bottom up sweep of the attractive cascade seen a short ways above the bridge over Cataract Creek


Slow bottom up sweep of a cascade we saw beneath the trail with a fallen log leaning against it


Bottom up sweep of the topmost cascade we saw on this hike

View Larger Map

TRIP REPORTS

• April 9, 2010

GUIDEBOOKS / OTHER RESOURCES

NEARBY WATERFALLS

• Alamere Falls
• Carson Falls
• Cascade Falls

Have You Been To This Waterfall?

Share your experience!

Click here to see visitor comments for this waterfall

Click here to see visitor comments for other waterfalls that we've visited in this region

Click here to go to the Comments Main Page