My August Go Hike trip with the Mountaineers was to Cherry Creek Falls this morning! 11 of us headed out at 8:30am and logged somewhere around 5.5 miles with 656ft of elevation gain. There were a few areas of mud and several areas closer to the falls where there were logs over the trail. We took the overgrown (with thimbleberries!) side trail that goes to the top of the falls and were surprised on the way back to find a big tree down that you have to walk along to get back onto the trail. There were a lot of people and dogs, plus quite a few kids doing the hike. Be sure you get there early for parking, because there is no lot and you have to park on the side of the road. Overall this was a great hike and worth the drive from Olympia!

Had cool ups and downs with lots of trees and bridges to cross and a broken down car. The falls at the end are definitely worth it!

We set out at about 7:45am on a Thursday and were the only ones on the trail, but by the time we got back to the car around 10:45am, we met a lot of groups coming in and there were quite a few cars parked along the road.

The falls were beautiful, of course, and the hike not too hard, though I am puzzled - three different apps clocked the distance to be farther than 5 miles roundtrip - we logged closer to 7 miles and didn't take any detours.  Not sure if our apps were confused based on losing cell service, but we should still have had GPS so.....I'm just not sure what to think here!

You may plan to bring a garbage bag of some kind - we filled two small bags full of garbage and there was still plenty of trash we didn't have the capacity to carry out.  There is also a ton of trash alongside the road where everyone parks, and we took some of that with us too.  Would be a shame to lose access to this beautiful place due to all the trash being left behind for the neighborhood, so hopefully we can all pitch in and make it better for everyone!

As stated on the main page, many spurs and side trails, but if you follow the pretty obvious "main" trail you'll end up at the falls just over 2.5 miles in. Most of the hike is a 1-2% grade either up or down, a change from the usual "up on the way in, back down to the car" most hikes are. Fun for the whole fam.

We arrived around 10a and had to drive a bit down the road to find a parking spot. It's a bit dodgy walking along the side of the road to get to the trailhead -- surprisingly, none of the passing cars moved over to give us some safe space. The trail is really beautiful, lots of classic PNW ferns and moss, wide and flat in many places. There is still a large downed tree on the trail, which is a fun obstacle if you are able-bodied. There were plenty of folks swimming and lunching at the falls. After we ate, we discovered a short, steep trail that takes you up above the falls for an aerial view, and we wished we'd eaten lunch up there since we had the space all to ourselves & it was very pretty! Once up there, we followed another trail for about a mile and found some tiny, wild strawberries and a creek full of little fishies. A lovely hike when you don't want to drive more than an hour from Seattle and crave something low-key.