Palisades Park — Saturday, Jun. 7, 2025

I've walked Palisades Park before but mostly the Rimrock Road area, which is easy and flat. This time I went with a geology group of Friends of Palisades and we went down into the canyon to Mystic Falls. The trail starts right at the parking area (beware of the many, many deep potholes there!) and is going steeply downhill. Then you reach are more flat area walking through a meadow and light forest. To get to the fall you go all the way down into the canyon to the creek, then follow the creek. This involves a few creek crossings (not terribly hard for an average hiker) and clambering over some tree trunks. The mosquitos were bad, I had sprayed myself with Picaridin, but they were still trying to get me. The falls are quaint but have some tall basalt cliffs on either side, which I really liked. There are other trails that go to the falls more directly, but they are steep and somewhat sketchy. All in all it was a pleasant, short hike. There are some more trails there we didn't explore, so you can get a few more miles in if you want. Too late for most wildflowers, mostly just sticky geranium. No toilets anywhere in that park. Supposedly there are lots of ticks there, but I didn't get any. I guess the Picaridin repelled the ticks if not the mosquitos.