Lewis River Falls — Sunday, Jul. 18, 2021

Getting there: it’s about 1.5 hours from Woodland, so just know it’s a journey from the Seattle area! From Cougar it’s 50 mins to 1 hour driving. One small section of gravel and the rest is paved. Most pavement is decent though NF 90 has some potholes. Easy to follow signs! And lots of permit/reservation required warnings as you approach.

Recreation.gov passes: enforced! We camped near Cougar and arrived around 10am on Sunday, beautiful day and the lot was mostly empty. Toilets at trailhead and at the nearby Lewis campground. We noticed that rangers were checking cars as they were coming in by 1p and we noticed them checking parked vehicles around noon. Don’t forget it’s 2 items- the lot reservation and a day use or forest pass or national park pass. We saw someone turned away !!! After that long drive, hopefully they enjoyed eagle cliff park (no reservation needed). Honestly it also looked nice on a hot day.

Trail is easy/moderate and well maintained, worth it to plan out your trip so you can enjoy the water and pretty views. Also, worth it to read WTA Trail description and hike up to the 2nd upper falls viewpoint! Water is crystal clear and I can tell why everyone wants to visit here at some point. We started at the lower Lewis trailhead and hiked up to taidnapam (just passed upper falls) and then back down to lower, stopping at Middle as well. The hike plus hanging out was about 3 hours hiking quickly with stops and some water time and pictures, we would’ve stayed longer but anticipated a long drive home. I think our watches measured ~8 miles.