I wanted to check out the new trail head parking. Nice to arrive at 10:00 am and have so many spots to choose from, plus squeaky clean out houses. The new connector trail starts up with a gentle grade and adds a couple of hundred extra feet to the old school bus turn around trail start. I clocked the total elevation gain to Teneriffe Falls as 1600 ft. Foxgloves lined much of the trail, especially in the beginning. I also saw some salmonberries and a few red huckleberries. The trail is nice and shady which is welcome on a hot day. After the dog-leg turn for the final fairly brutal climb the trail becomes very rocky and crosses some hot and exposed talus slopes. After seeing the dry creek bed on the way up I was worried the falls would be dry too. They are still cascading but the flow is quite low now for this seasonal fall. There is not much space at the falls to sit so after admiring the cascading water I returned back down the trail to eat lunch by the dry creek.
After returning to the main Mt Teneriffe trail I headed up, crossing 3 bridges, to find the junction with the lower Roaring Creek trail. There is a pretty waterfall at the the third bridge worth adding the extra mile to my hike. From here I turned around and headed home.
Returning to the parking lot I found a very hot car as there is very little shade and the black-top had things sizzling nicely.
Comments
Thx for the update on the parking lot. Where exactly is it? Im having a hard time envisioning where it could be due to the extremely limited parking for this trailhead in the past. Before there was parking for about 10-15 cars when I did this a year ago. Thanks in advance!
Posted by:
kevinj29@uw.edu on Jul 08, 2017 06:13 PM
It's on the same road about a half mile before the school bus turn around parking. They have leveled a large section of forest and it has a big sign, easily visible from the road ie can't miss it.
Posted by:
Hikeswith3 on Jul 08, 2017 08:21 PM