Little Mashel Falls

Did a morning hike to the Little Mashel Falls from the Pack Forest area. This was a 6 mile rt hike with about 600-800 ft of overall elevation gain.

We parked in the parking lot by the administration building and hiked up the forest road for about 1-1/2 miles, taking a left at a Y in the road.

 From this side road, there is a rock with FALLS painted in blue marking the trail to the waterfalls.

 This trail goes by a small pond.

We decided to hike down to the Lower Falls first, this side trail is marked with a sign.

Work on this section of the trail has recently been done. It was nice to walk on a new gravel trail instead of the mud.

 View of Lower Little Mashel Falls from the trail. we had some unexpected sunshine this morning.

Some newly built steps led down to the bottom of the falls.

These steps are a big improvement over the old, frayed, rusty cable that had gone down the muddy slope we used last fall.

Wide angle view of Lower Little Mashel Falls from the bottom of the falls.

We then returned to the main falls trail.
 It was nice to see some new blossoms.

The trail splits where there is a sign for the Upper Falls trail on the right. Although it is not marked, Middle Little Mashel Falls is on the spur trail to the left.

View of Middle Little Mashel Falls from the trail.

 View of Middle Little Mashel Falls from the base of the falls. The spray was very strong here. The rocks were very slippery, I was careful hiking down and up this section of the trail.

After returning to the trail towards the Upper Falls, we passed a sign saying we were leaving Pack Forest. Soon after this sign, we found a boot path down to Little Mashel Creek just above Middle Little Mashel Falls. Wide angle shot from this spot. The falls drop off just to the left of the large square rock.

 This large stump made me think of a forest troll.


















There are some beautiful fern and moss covered rock walls.

 The timbleberries are in bloom,

 as are the trillium.

 Upper Little Mashel Falls lie across the river (which was too deep to ford today), part of the falls are hidden behind the trees.

 After this, the trail got quite muddy.

 But it was worth it to watch Little Mashel River cascading over these boulders a little further up the trail.