Tin Cup Joe Falls — Thursday, Nov. 3, 2016

Snoqualmie Region > North Bend Area

This is a rough and difficult route to an interesting waterfall on Cripple Creek which is a tributary of the Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie river. Thanks to Cliff birdsall for his 3 very useful trip reports on this route. Cliff started at the Gateway Bridge trailhead and his RT was about 13 miles. Being obviously a bit lazier, I opted for the 5 mile RT version which takes off from the Dingford creek trailhead. The Dingford Creek trailhead is 18.1 miles down the Middle Fork road. The first 12.5 miles are on brand spanking new beautiful paved road. The last 5.6 miles is on a fairly rough gravel road with lots of water puddles and potholes. There is one spot at around mile 15 where a side creek has deeply eroded the road and I would only recommend trying to cross this with a 4WD or at least a hybrid. The trail quickly descends down to the Mid Fork river which is crossed on a very sturdy steel bridge. The wood bridge surface is extremely slippery. Immediately on the south side of the river there is an impressive old cedar on the left. Turn right (west) and enjoy the big old cedars up hill from the trail. The trail is in great condition and is much less muddy than the section east of the Gateway bridge. At 0.6 mi the trail traverses a rare old Douglas Fir grove that was somehow spared by the old railroad loggers who cleared out most of the valley floor old growth back in the 1930's. The very nicely built trail then goes through maturing 2nd growth with a cool mossy understory. At 1.6 mile the trail crosses Cripple Creek on another sturdy but slippery bridge. The unmarked path up Cripple Creek takes off about 20 feet west of the bridge. This path is well worn in places and in other place is difficult to follow. There seems to be multiple routes in the lower section so it can be a bit confusing. I generally follow the pink and orange ribbons. About 1/3 of the way up this 1 miles trail it enters a beautiful , rare low elevation old growth Cedar and Douglas Fir forest. It's here where the blowdowns start getting difficult to negotiate. I used my electric chain saw to reestablish the original trail route by removing the tangled side branches of the sometimes large windfall. I think I made a significant impact but the very large windfall will never be removed. Following this trail is almost like solving a puzzle. I thought it was difficult but fun. There were lots of cool mushrooms along the way. Some of the trees are quite large and beautiful. One of the larger Doug Fir trees was at least 8 feet in diameter. I got to the bottom of the lower falls but the water current was too strong for me to cross safely. You have to be able to cross the river just below the lower falls to continue on to the upper falls. There is a huge log that crosses the river but it looked slippery and it's about 8-10 feet above the river so a fall probably wouldn't turn out well. I will definitely want to go back in a bit dryer season so that I can make it to the upper falls. RT 5mi and 1200 feet elevation. The last mile is a very slow go. In spite of all the rain recently, the entire trail is amazingly free of significant mud. Please bring a pair of clippers and help out with resurrecting this unmaintained trail. I did a bunch of brushing and branch removal but there is plenty more to do.