Denny Creek, Melakwa Lake, Franklin Falls & Wagon Road Trail — Monday, Oct. 20, 2025

Today's objective was Melakwa Lake, but rain turned it into a spontaneous waterfall chasing hike instead. (It's worth noting that of all the contradictory weather reports I had going in today, the most accurate ended up being the Nat'l Weather Service's mountain forecast site. I'll link it below.)

I started out this morning headed for Melakwa. The last few day's rain had really filled Denny Creek and the water was amazing. All the falls were back to full flow. Fall leaves are starting to fade, but there's still quite a bit of color. This trail also is stunning when there are low hanging clouds and mist. 

The rain picked up quite a bit when I got to Keekwulee, so I took the side trail down to the top of the falls to assess. Not too long ago, when it rained like this, the Melakwa trail turned into a stream. That's no longer the case with all the trail and rock work they've done up here. Still, I ended up deciding to head back down.

By the time I got back down, there was a rain window, but it still looked ominous enough that no one was around, so I decided to take advantage of that and head up to Franklin Falls. The Franklin Falls trail was totally the opposite of Denny Creek. There were big pools of standing water in dozens of places and quite a lot of mud. It's not the best trail in the rain. The rocks near the falls and some of the logs in the water were also slippery. 

To avoid the water on the trail, I headed back on the Wagon Road Trail. This is a pretty trail, but also pretty unremarkable. Other than one place with water completely over the trail, it was in great shape and better off than the Franklin Falls trail. It also had a lot of mushrooms of many different varieties.

And of course the rain stopped and the sun came out when I got back to the parking lot. Typical Pacific Northwest.

I only saw three other groups on the Melakwa Lake / Denny Creek trail. There were quite a few more people on the Franklin Falls trail, but not many. I even had a little bit of time with the falls to myself. Lot was pretty empty both before and after my hike.

Ended up with 8 miles total, 1700' of elevation. There was snow above about 4000' at the pass, but I didn't climb high enough today to get into it. Trail temp was 39 starting out and it didn't get much warmer.

More Information on this Trip Report

• https://www.weather.gov/sew/Mountainforecast