Hiking Hawk Falls in Pennsylvania

May Family Visit Travelog #10
Hickory Run State Park · Mon 25 May 2026. 11:30am.

We are finally at Hawk Falls. This morning we drove through rain, heavy fog, and SHADES of DEATH to get here. After all that the hike itself was an anticlimactic stroll 1km downhill to the falls.



The weather has held out being not-rainy for the past two hours. That's good because this hike would be a lot less fun in the rain. But because it's rained so much the past several days we had no worries about whether the falls would be flowing fully. And the continued gloom overhead is actually a nice condition for visiting waterfalls. When the sky is dim overhead the forest feels more intimate and the leaves glistening with raindrops practically sparkle.



For these two pictures (above), yes, I/we am/are kind of standing in the creek below the falls. Actually, we're balancing on rocks. Though in the first picture I've placed my camera tripod right in the water. The rocks aren't that big. I wore my boots so I wasn't afraid of stepping in a few inches of water. Hawk had her hiking sandals on (boots don't fit comfortably after toe surgery a few months ago) so had to be more cautious.



Partway back up the trail we spotted a side path over to a rocky outcropping. I could hear the crash of the falls from the main trail at that point so I figured we'd looped around to be right above them. Indeed we had. And the rocky outcropping 20m off the main trail offered a great view of the falls. The only downside was that the rocks were wet. That meant we had to be careful scrambling over them... and that we got the seats of our pants wet sitting down to admire the view. But that's part of why we wear our "hike-y clothes" when hiking.

Hiking the Seven Tubs

May Family Visit Travelog #11
near Wilkes-Barre, PA · Mon 25 May 2026. 3:30pm.

After hiking Hawk Falls earlier today we drove further north, toward Wilkes-Barre, to visit the Seven Tubs. Actually first we drove into town to check into our hotel and get some lunch, but I'll write about town later. For now it's all about the hiking.

Seven Tubs is the name given to an area near the foot of Wyoming Mountain (elev. 1,932') where a creek slices through a narrow sandstone gorge. There are numerous spots, apparently seven of them, to be exact, where the water swirls around in pools where the creek has carved slightly wider spots in the rock. These are still pretty narrow, though, and often hard to see from above. But more than these tubs what interests us are the waterfalls between them.



The first pair of falls (above) are easy to spot, They're in the canyon below a footbridge that crosses over the creek at the near end of a loop trail.

From here we walked back across the bridge around the left side of the gorge and up one branch of the short loop trail. This branch of the trail was rough, clambering over uneven rocks slicked with four days of rain, often within just two steps of the lip of the gorge. It was weird because in most parks this kind of footing would be beyond the fence and the signs marked "Danger" and "Do not enter". But here it was part of the trail. And we were sure it was part of the trail because it was marked with blazes.



At the back end of the loop we crossed a smaller footbridge then came back around the right side of the gorge. The trail here was more what I'd expect for a state park. Still there were no signs or fences, but at least the trail wasn't like, "Take two steps to the side and you'll die." I mean, I like nature wild and free unblemished with fences and signs, but in our litigious society it feels weird to see.

One upside of the "no fences and signs" thing was we could scramble down the slippery slope of the canyon to the water's edge. Okay, sometimes we do that even when there are fences and signs. But it felt go to not be confronted with reminders that we were committing a crime to do so.

Speaking of crime, there were a lot of young people on the trail with us. It seemed like all of them were out here to hole up in a nice spot and smoke marijuana. We had to leave our spot near the creek in the photo above because the second-hand smoke was noxious. (Note: marijuana is legal in Pennsylvania only for registered medical users. Recreational marijuana is illegal. Apparently there were lots of really sick teens and twenty-somethings, like with glaucoma or arthritis or nausea from chemotherapy for cancer treatments, out here with us. 🤣)



As we came back down to the footbridge over the canyon we discussed again whether to descend the other trail at the junction. It leads down to another creek that joins the one in the gorge. "I bet there's a falls right beneath this bridge," I added. We agreed to descend specifically for that. Indeed there is a falls right beneath the bridge.

We walked upstream along the other creek for a bit, too. It has a few small cascades. And, today, lots of pot-smoking teens. We bailed out after 100m or so because the small cascades weren't worth choking through acrid clouds to get to.

Now back at the trailhead we're stowing our gear for the short drive (back) to our hotel.