Sunday, November 20, 2016

Little Mashel Falls

We drove up on Hwy 7 just past Eatonville to Pack Forest to hike to the 3 waterfalls along the Little Mashel River.  The hike we did today was about 5.75 miles with 500 ft of overall elevation gain/loss.
From the parking lot near the Administration Building, we walked along Road 1000 northward to a Y in the road a little over 1-1/2 miles. Took a left at the Y (road 1070, but we did not see any signage). We walked a short ways until we saw "FALLS" written in blue on a rock, this is the Falls trail. Soon it reaches a junction, turn left at the junction.

After a short distance the trail reaches a Y. Go to the right for Middle Little Mashel Falls, but first, we went down to the left (there is a short wooden bridge on that trail).


















This leads to the turn off on the right to Lower Little Mashel Falls.















We enjoyed the mossy forest walk.
Note: along along the route there are signs warning of the danger of slippery rocks and recent fatalities.
View of Lower Little Mashel Falls from the trail.
There is a steep, slippery, root filled boot path down to the bottom of the falls with a cable line in place.

















Be careful, as the cable was very worn in places.

Wide angle view of Lower Little Mashel Falls (40 ft)


We returned back up the trail to the junction with the main falls trail. There was no signage for Middle Little Mashel Falls, but where the sign of the tree showed Upper Falls to the right, the trail to the left takes you down to Middle Falls.
This trail down to Middle Little Mashel Falls was the easiest to access.





View of Middle Little Mashel (or Bridal Veil) Falls from near the end of the trail. (Higher up the trail we saw a cable going down a very steep section to the falls, but there is no need to take that way down)
The trail continued down to the base of the falls, it was slippery in the mud, but not as steep as the path down to the Lower Falls.

View of of Middle Little Mashel (or Bridal Veil) Falls from the base of the falls (120 ft), the spray was very strong today.

















We returned to the falls trail to hike up to the Upper Falls, this portion of the trail was narrow and eroding in places. It did not appear as well trodden.
Shortly downstream from the Upper Falls, when Little Mashel River is high,  water spills over before the falls creating another fall. This was across the river, which was too high for us to easily cross today.


zoom of this spillage fall
Shortly after this, the trail had eroded enough where we needed to bushwhack to reach a good view of the Upper Falls.

Upper Little Mashel (or Tom Tom) Falls (25 ft)

We saw a variety of fungi and some flowers along the trail today:






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