Water, water everywhere and quite a drop it takes! Cougar Mountain's Coal Creek Falls is the primary attraction here, but it's the water underfoot that really makes the area special. Such abundance helps keep the forest green and fragrant, with wildflowers in season--and abundant summer mosquitoes. Come in November through May, when the nights are too cold for these pesky biters and the falls are full of runoff. In the spring you'll find skunk cabbage, and through the early summer you'll enjoy plump, juicy salmonberries. And at the end, you'll enjoy the cool cascade of Coal Creek Falls.

From the trailhead, head up toward Red Town. The route you want veers left onto Cave Hole Trail. Once upon a time, mules pulled wagonloads of coal down this trace, and later, as the coal veins played out, folks used it as an access route to another easily accessible fuel source: firewood. Today's trail uses that same old track.

As you climb away from the old Red Town site, you'll notice areas where the ground seems to have slumped in on itself--these are the cave holes that give the trail its name. The holes formed when miners pushed their underground extractions too close to the surface, leaving a void that eventually caved in, creating a "cave hole" in the ground above.

Less than 1 mile after leaving the trailhead, you'll find the Coal Creek Falls Trail leading off to the right. The path meanders around the upper slopes of Curious Valley before slanting down into a small gulch carved by the tumbling waters of Coal Creek. Here, about 1.25 miles out, you'll find the falls.

Coal Creek Falls can be spectacular during the rainy season of January-March, thundering down the rocky chute. Venture out during a particularly cold spell and you'll find marvelous ice sculptures formed by the splashing and spray from the falls. By midsummer, the falls usually shrinks to nothing more than a small splattering of dribbling streams between the rocks.