Donut Falls

Current mood: adventurous
Category:Travel and Places

We finally decided to attempt the Donut Falls hike again this labor day. This after the failed attempt at it.

This was the road leading to the trailhead…. Landis is 6'1 see how much over his head the snow is? Yea I guess May is not the time to go hiking up in the mountains.

Back to our second attempt at a better time of year….
The hike itself was rather easy, your typical walk through the woods. Very pretty.

 
The falls are up just around the bend here, but I thought this was pretty.

Finally we get to the falls. Upon first look they don't seem very impressive. I read somewhere that apparently there was a rockslide not very long ago, so it may have been more pretty before being covered up.

 
Here you can see the water disappearing into the side of the mountain.
The climb up to the falls is a lot more difficult than the trail. You have to scramble over boulders constantly judging the easiest way up. Personally my easiest route ended with me crossing the river 3 or 4 times.

 
I did take this cool close up though.

 

This picture gives you a pretty good idea as to why this was named Donut Falls.

I climbed inside the little cave underneath which hides a beautiful pool of water. There is this wonderful sense of serenity when you step inside the cavern. The voices of the other hikers disappear into a calming din of rushing water.  And then I captured this.

I love this image. It's like an angel stepping out of the top of the cave.

Here is the top where the water comes in. I guess this really gives you an idea of it's namesake.

 
The view from the top.

As I was climbing down I overheard a couple of guys daring each other to get in. As I wasn't willing to endure the ice cold water myself, I still thought it'd make a cool pic so I prodded them along, calling them pussies etc. Finally I lifted the camera up and said I'll take your picture and they stormed right in. haha.

I am glad we decided to attempt this hike again, as well even though it is not the largest, nor the tallest, nor even the most powerful waterfall I have ever seen. it is certainly very impressive and unique. There is something magical about it.

The overall hike is quite easy, however to actually get up to the falls, you do have to climb up large boulders and cross the river a few times. I was definitely sore the next day.

Overall I would give this trail 9 squirrels out of 10. I would give it a perfect 10, but it's a very popular trail and there were lots of humans about.