Tamanawas Falls

We skipped the rain and got snow

Most of you know me as a meticulous researcher, planner, and preparer, but I’ve learned to be flexible because of the weather in the Pacific Northwest.

The loose plan was to go to Herman Creek and see what we wanted to do. I had maps, aerials, gpx tracks, and PDFs of trail descriptions. We got to the trailhead and it was dumping rain. After checking the radar, I saw that the rain wasn’t crossing the Cascade crest, so we headed up HWY 35 and chose the first interesting trailhead we saw; Polallie Trailhead.

Neither of us had ever been here or had any idea what was up here.

I took a quick look at the maps of the area and was able to download a bit on 1x data. We made a decision to head away from the road and then hike up along Cold Spring Creek. On the way up, we saw the Tamanawas Falls Cutoff Trail and thought that would be an interesting side trip on the way back down.

After a short lunch it started to snow but we kept ascending. We crossed into the wilderness and continued to the first crossing of Cold Spring Creek where we decided to turn around and head for the falls.

We had the whole hike to ourselves and the snow made the experience incredibly magical.