Franklin Falls, Franklin Falls - Winter — Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2020

Warnings first - this trail is a waste of time if you don’t have MICROSPIKES. The whole 8 miles we wore our microspikes and the people without them were really struggling and looked MISERABLE. This trail is so slippery due to the ice that has accumulated over the forest road and ESPECIALLY at the falls. You would be lucky to get through this hike without injury if you choose to go without spikes.

In the wintertime, forest road 58 is closed to all vehicles so you have to park at the bottom of this road. This adds an extra 2.5 miles to get to the trailhead and then another 1.5 miles to the falls. Roundtrip mileage is about 8 miles with 720 feet of elevation gained.

Once you exit Denny Creek and head to the trail, the road is covered in ice. This is the only area that we had to worry about driving over ice so we just parked about 400 feet from the start of the forest road so we wouldn’t have to slip around. We arrived around noon on a Tuesday and there were about 40 cars parked on the side of the road.

The forest road up to the trailhead is wide enough to safely distance but gets narrower once you reach Denny Creek Campground. We decided to do a loop and take the route that runs along the river to get to the falls. It was absolutely beautiful! The river and cabins along the trail are so picturesque in the snow. To get to this trail take a sharp left when you reach the fork at the end of the forest road. You’ll see a bridge ahead of you and the trail is to the right before the bridge. If you cross the bridge, you’ve gone too far. Again, the trail is super slippery and covered in ice so without spikes you’ll be miserable and potentially injure yourself.

The falls is beautiful and the whole area is covered in enormous icicles that are stunning, but getting down to the falls is a sheet of narrow ice. There was a bottleneck of people trying to slide down on their butts or grab onto roots and branches as they slid down the narrow edge. We spent about 45 mins at the falls and headed back on the Wagon Road trail. This trail is less crowded and much more narrow but still beautiful. The trek down only took about an hour.

Overall this hike is pretty easy AS LONG AS YOU HAVE MICROSPIKES! Please, please don’t do it without them.

I hope this trip report helps you make good decisions! Happy hiking! 🥾