Wallace Falls 02/19/11

Wallace Falls State Park is located off Hwy 2 in the little hamlet of Gold Bar, WA.

This was my second visit to Wallace Falls. The first visit was back in January 2007 (trip report available here on nwhikers) and was done in a bit of a rush to avoid risking my car being locked in the parking lot for the night.

Rob and I arrived in the parking lot at just after the leisurely time of 11:00am.

Perfect blue skies. A very nice change of scenery from the dreary wet we've been living in for the last few weeks. Can you believe that the weather forecast was actually holding true?

There are a number of trails at Wallace Falls State Park. We chose to take the route along the river to take photos of the locally well known waterfalls.

We started out with a visit to Little Wallace Creek where there is a very scenic section of the creek with very photogenic cascading falls. This little side trail is a product of someone's Eagle Scout project.



Shortly thereafter we took a short break for some river pictures where the trail crosses on a stable and solid bridge.





The trail continues onward, and upward, to a viewpoint above the lower falls and also a distant view of the middle falls.

Due to the time of day and the extreme sun vs. shade conditions, photographs of the lower falls aren't worth sharing (hey, a good excuse for you to make a visit there yourself). The middle falls puts on an impressive show (but also difficult to photograph today).

One shot with the camera, another with the cell phone:




Zooming out shows a high point above the Middle falls with a light dusting of snow. What isn't captured in this image is the bottom of the falls or the cascading river down below. The absence of these portions of the actual view means this picture doesn't do proper justice to the reality of a visit to this scenic spot in person.



At the base of Middle Falls, the river cascades and temporarily gathers in the beautiful pool of circling aqua.



Finally we continued along the trail, passing a couple other scenic vantage points of the river, the falls and also the Hwy 2 valley and peaks beyond before returning to the parking lot.

Our route was an out and back hike, involving about six miles of hiking and about 1,500 feet of elevation gain.

With more time (or less pictures), trails will lead you deeper into the park to Wallace Lake or other destinations.

GPS route map and elevation profile:



This area is very popular in nice weather and there are State Park camping options available at the trail head.

We returned to the car at about 3:00pm, ready to continue our adventure further east on Hwy 2 with a night-time snowshoe trip up Skyline Ridge at Steven's Pass. (Click here for that Trip report).

Happy Trails!



~E