Franklin Falls - Winter — Sunday, Jan. 14, 2024

Bottom Line:

With the recent cold snap, Franklin Falls is partially frozen! Beautiful!! We are due for a warmup so maybe only a few days remaining to see this winter transformation. We hiked top-down from Alpental Road, which is the shorter route given road closures to the (new) Denny Creek trailhead parking lot (i.e. the bottom-up route, where the road closure adds ~4 miles to the hike). CAUTION: Thin ice, and avalanche danger at the falls themselves

Stats:

• Distance: 5-1/2 miles
• Duration: 2-1/4 hours
• Vertical: 570 feet (down, and then back up)
• Weather: Sunny, cold (~6F), a little wind creating wind chill, the falls are shadowed most of the day, but late in the afternoon the sun starts streaming in from the west through the South Fork valley; it was cold and a little challenging to take photos with frozen hands! The mist from the falls was freezing in the air and coming down as ice and snow, coating many a camera lens! Avalanche Danger: Moderate
• Road/Parking: A Sunday on a long weekend - the parking was going to be bad, but we arrived with the right expectations; there is parking along Alpental Road at the junction of NF-58; there are a LOT of "No Parking" signs and tow trucks were all over the place yesterday; enough legal parking for ~10 cars, with a National Forest Pass required; we parked at Snoqualmie Summit West (no parking pass required), where we had to wait a spell for a spot to opened up; overall chill experience with the right expectations ;) If you park near Summit West, you will need to navigate the road to the trailhead, but cars were moving closely and being careful of pedestrians - easy in *good* weather at least
• Trail: The first part of the tail is on NF-58 which honestly does not seem like a road with all the snow (except for the abandoned buried car a short way in... whoa!!); the trail crosses under WB I-90 and then parallels EB I-90 for a while; the freeway is quiet with the deep snow and high embankments; on a snowy day, you might get hit by snowplow debris from I-90 -- WSDOT plows can send huge streams a long way!! In the afternoon, there is plenty of sunshine on this route; eventually, one turns into the forest for a short but beautiful trail to the falls; the ice is thin around the falls and numerous folks punched through, one even losing a boot (hope they made it out OK); the ice debris right in front of the falls is unstable and deep - falling in here would be a bigger problem; preparedness was the key to enjoying the hike; micro-spikes were sufficient on the well-packed trail - did not need snowshoes (saw everything from snowshoes to sneakers, and even someone wearing what looked like slippers!)
• Takeaway: A beautiful and unique experience so close to Puget Sound but important to think about some of the risks: thin ice, and avalanche danger (there is a large avalanche chute that can run right to the base of the falls). For those that want to admire from a distance, the views just before the basin remain good and the forest walk is really beautiful with the snow. 

For waterfalls, only a video can share the real experience! The attached 4K video is short, but shares some views from the trail, and at the falls. Here is a link to a video of a much larger frozen waterfall from a year ago on the Kicking Horse River in BC.

Cold green water was welling up in spots over the ice - almost like a magna spout! While beautiful, stay clear - this is an especially hazardous part of the ice. I captured this effect in the video. Not sure if this was a result of all the people standing on the ice and sinking the ice platform. The ice got less stable in the short time we were there due to solar warming.

More Information on this Trip Report

• https://nwac.us/avalanche-forecast/#/snoqualmie-pass
• https://www.instagram.com/wta_alpinewanderer/