It is December 2020 and we are still locked down due to COVID-19.  I am still keeping an eye out for international travel planning opportunities like in this post here, but due to the restrictions, in 2020, we mostly focused on day and weekend trips in the great Northwest.  Here are a few previous ones:

• Cannon Beach Oregon
• Lake Quinault
• Hiking Cougar Mountain
• Gold Creek Pond

We also hiked Kendall Lakes over the holidays to check out the snow as well:  Kendall Lakes hike

Now, this one was Wallace Falls which I had never heard of before despite living in WA for 30 years!  It is a gorgeous state park with a large number of easy and medium trails and many places to have a picnic.

One of the disadvantages is the route is on the way to Steven’s Pass (where many go skiing in the winter months).  This means VERY long backups and bumper to bumper traffic in both directions in Monroe and Sultan sometimes.

2020

This was our 2020 visit

But, once you arrive, and even when the parking lot is overflowing and many people are in the park, you have a LOT of space to yourself.  You have a choice of both easy trails and medium challenge trails depending on you feel.

Some of the mountain views are gorgeous, but be prepared for temperature variances as the temp can rise and fall quite quickly based on where you are on the trail.  Goes to warm to quite chilly in just a few minutes.

Depending on how far you want to hike, there are many falls and rushing water to capture your attention.

Plenty of room great pictures on large bridges.

I think there are 4 falls altogether.  The lower, small, medium and large.

Great naming!

The smaller is the most popular as it is approximately a 4 mile round trip and can be easily be visited in 2 hours if you take an easy pace, avoid people not wearing masks and keeping yourself socially distance on a few of the tight corners on the trails.

2024

Oh yes, the traffic is still bad even when you go early on a weekend.

Our latest visit did not have all the same views because it was so hazy from all the wildfire smoke.

Can you see the haze even though we were deep in the forest?

It is medium effort and easy complexity to continue on ti the middle falls that delight most people/