Falls Creek Falls (Gifford Pinchot National Forest, Washington, USA)

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Falls Creek Falls

Falls Creek Falls is one of a handful of impressive waterfalls along the Wind River Road north of Carson and the Columbia River Gorge in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest of Washington State. Getting to the unimaginatively-named falls involves a little bit of a moderate, mostly gradually uphill 3.4-mile return walk to its viewpoint.

The trail is pretty tame and mostly under shade if it happens to be a sunny day like it was for us (though I'm sure this isn't normally the case in these parts). The falls drops in a pair of tiers where the wider upper tier is channeled into a plunging lower tier. The total drop is said to be about 250ft. You could see the top part of the falls before the final descent to the overlook, which gives you a bit of an idea of how big this waterfall really is.

We suspect this is a pretty popular weekend excursion spot for those living in Portland or other neighboring areas in Southern Washington. But Wind River Road is also only open during Summer as it's closed in the Winter due to snow.

Apparently, there are also a couple of other waterfalls on Falls Creek (Middle and Upper). We sensed this because there were signs detouring to those waterfalls. However, we didn't do them as we were content enough to see the main falls.

Directions: To get here, drive north along Wind River Road (Road 30) north of Carson over 9 miles past the Panther Creek Road (Road 65). There's a signed turnoff numbered 3062-057 to the right, where the spur road continues on a 2-mile fairly tame gravel surface. There is a fork here with the left spur leading to Upper Falls Creek (Trail 152) while the right spur leads to Lower Falls Creek (Trail 152A). Take the Lower Falls Creek spur, which ultimately ends at a car park area with a port-a-potty and a trailhead sign. It was pretty busy when we showed up as only a few spaces were available when we arrived on a mid Saturday morning.

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Julie hiking amidst attractively tall trees

Julie hiking alongside the creek

Steel footbridge

View of the falls as we approach it

Falls Creek Falls

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Bottom up sweep right in front of the impressive falls in Southern Washington

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TRIP REPORTS

For more information about our experiences with this waterfall, check out the following travel stories.

August 22, 2009

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