Falls Creek Falls Trail No 152A

Steph sent me a message and wanted to know if the boys and I wanted to join her and the kids on a hike up by Carson WA while the men were at the Organic Brew Fest. I had been cleaning the house all morning so I said yes and off we went. We got a little bit of late start but finally made it up there and it was gorgeous! We were in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, pretty high up actually and the hike in was a steady uphill climb too. Not horrible by any means but you could tell you were constantly headed in the upwards direction. You could see water almost the entire way up and could hear it at all times. The trees were huge and beautiful providing shade on this sunny hot day. It's places like this that make me love living in the Pacific Northwest even more than I already do. I have to say the kids did GREAT! It was a decent 3.4 mile round trip hike and it wasn't until the way back down that you could tell the kids were getting tired and hungry (shhh, don't tell them but so were the adults). On the way back down, however, Oliver was getting a bit too tired and he kept tripping and falling. On the third fall he just couldn't take it anymore and I ended up carrying him for at least a half a mile. At one point, while carrying the boy, Ty and Noah turned to me and said, "Have you fallen yet?" Can you guess what happened next? Yup, I went down, with Oliver on my back. My instinct was to protect him though so my right knee and then left side of my body took a nasty hit. I am not looking forward to tomorrow morning because I know it's going to hurt. Despite my fall, we all had a great time! I plan to go back sometime though, without kids, to take a ton of pictures. Speaking of pictures...

Entrance to the trail.

So many beautiful spots along the way...

Oliver, Ty and Noah on the trail.

Neat suspension bridge that wobbled as you crossed it.

Couldn't stop taking pictures.

The trail follows the creek up to the lower falls.

Quick pit stop on the way up.

I just liked the trees all down and across the creek.

Upper part of the Lower Falls, it's a three tier waterfall that, from where I was, could not get all of it in my picture.

Lower part of the falls and the punch bowl. Oliver LOVED the rainbow and yelled at me to look at it many times. He had to yell because the roar from the falls was awesome. Can you see Noah and Ty?

Ty relaxing in the shade against the rock.

My sweet boy.

Hey look, it's a mountain goat!

I know you can't see her face but I love this picture of Tori.

Hi Jack!

There was another little footbridge that we had to cross and this is what it went over.