Iron Creek Falls
Aug. 13th, 2022 02:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerFriday last week was a busy day for hiking. Despite getting a somewhat late start from Chehalis, WA after being up 'til 2 the night before we hiked the Covel Creek trail (which grew to 3 blogs), then Camp Creek Falls, then Windy Ridge at Mount St. Helens. And we still weren't done for the day. We'd passed Iron Creek Falls on the way up to Mount St. Helens, and we were determined to hike it on the way back.
A great thing about summer is these loooong days giving us so many hours of daylight. Often I plan around the question, "Can we make it a two-fer?" Today we'd make it... a four-fer? A quad?
Daylight isn't the only constraint on hiking, though. There's also energy. We were pretty close to spend after all those other hikes, particularly after ascending those 439 stairs at Windy Ridge. Fortunately Iron Creek Falls was only a few hundred meters each way.
And what a payoff this short trail yielded. Water pours off a rocky ledge 30-40' high into a beautifully framed rock bowl below.
At first we thought the trail ended here but then we noticed careful cuts in the fallen logs. They were steps to climb over the logs. We followed the trail around to the right, to where there's a sandy beach underneath the overhang of the ledge.
This is another falls you can walk behind like Covel Falls... though here you have to get in the water to go behind/under the falls. I was too tired to deal with swimming/wading and having to change into dry clothes afterwards (plus I didn't even have spare underwear to change into!) so I stayed at the water's edge to enjoy the scene.
A great thing about summer is these loooong days giving us so many hours of daylight. Often I plan around the question, "Can we make it a two-fer?" Today we'd make it... a four-fer? A quad?
Daylight isn't the only constraint on hiking, though. There's also energy. We were pretty close to spend after all those other hikes, particularly after ascending those 439 stairs at Windy Ridge. Fortunately Iron Creek Falls was only a few hundred meters each way.
And what a payoff this short trail yielded. Water pours off a rocky ledge 30-40' high into a beautifully framed rock bowl below.
At first we thought the trail ended here but then we noticed careful cuts in the fallen logs. They were steps to climb over the logs. We followed the trail around to the right, to where there's a sandy beach underneath the overhang of the ledge.
This is another falls you can walk behind like Covel Falls... though here you have to get in the water to go behind/under the falls. I was too tired to deal with swimming/wading and having to change into dry clothes afterwards (plus I didn't even have spare underwear to change into!) so I stayed at the water's edge to enjoy the scene.
