Big Creek Falls and Otter Falls Spring Hike

Went out to the Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie River area to hike to two waterfalls along the Taylor River: Big Creek Falls and Otter Falls. Due to a couple of washouts in the road before the trailhead, we parked about 0.5 mile away. Today's hike was 12.5 miles with about 600 ft of elevation gain.

This is a nice walk in the forest with several streams rushing down the hillside to Taylor River.












Some of the creeks had stones or logs to walk over while a couple had bridges.

 None of the fords seemed treacherous














About 5 miles along the trail we ran in to some snow on the trail. The snow was soft and traction was not needed.

 There are some lovely huge boulders along this trail.

 Big Creek Falls (238 ft) can be seen from the bridge on the trail.

 After viewing Big Creek Falls we returned about a 1/4 mile back along the trail for the stone arrow pointing to the boot track that leads up to Lipsy Lake and Otter Falls.

Otter Falls (1200ft)

 The view opposite Otter Falls.

 This little drop off one of the creeks caught my eye on the hike back.

We saw some skunk cabbage and trillium in bloom along the trail along with these fun fungi:

Otter Falls Hike

 Decided to do a nice afternoon hike up to Otter Falls, this is a 10 mile rt hike with 650 ft of elevation gain. However, there was a good sized washout on the Taylor River Road that we did not feel comfortable driving over, so we parked further down the road and added some road walking to our trip.
The trail starts where the road is closed by a barrier on the Snoqualmie Lake Trail.

I took a picture of the trail map, there is a hole where Otter Falls is located.

 The trail goes up along the side of the Taylor River.

 There are several stream crossings along the trail.

 Most of the trail is in the forest along the Taylor River, but there were some tree breaks with views of Garafield Peak and Treen Peak.

 There is a nice bridge over Marten Creek

 Marten Creek downstream of bridge

 Marten Creek upstream of bridge

 There were some larger creek crossings that we used poles to help us over the rocks.

 This was our largest crossing and it is soon after this that we found the turnoff to Otter Falls,

 someone has marked the way with white stones.
From here it is a very short distance up a small hill and down to the beach.

 Otter Falls empties into little Lipsy Lake.

Pano of Otter Falls and Lipsy Lake

 view across from Otter Falls

 On the hike back, I noticed this nice drop along one of the smaller creeks.

 Some of the flowers and blossoms we saw on the trail today: