Hiked the Lower, Middle, and Upper Falls in the Lewis River Recreation Area last Saturday
The parking lots require reservations, so I was lucky to get one for the Middle Falls parking lot for Saturday. We stayed close to Cougar, so we were able to get there around 8 AM.
Driving on Forest Road 90 was quite OK, the rough parts had signage, so no surprise potholes, I had plenty of warning to slow down in time.
The parking lot for Middle Falls had only one other car, but there wasn't any privy here.
We first hiked to Lower Falls. Lots of people camping here and making breakfast or getting ready to hike, but there was no one along the viewpoints. The falls are beautiful, but I didn't see any obvious way to go down to the river downstream and close to the falls.
From here we made our way to Middle Falls, but did not take the trail to go down to it, and instead first visited Upper Falls.
The trail from Middle to Upper is really pretty - you walk at the foot of a cliff at some places, with jagged rocks above you that looks like they might fall down. There are also many large Douglas Fir trees, and I also saw a thick Red Cedar. Lots of huckleberry bushes too, but looked like the berries were long picked off.
The Upper Falls are beautiful too, and you can spread out and sit down at the river level here.
I also continued further up, where the trail was steep, but I could get to the Upper Falls viewing area, where I was closer to the loud gushing of water on the side of the falls, definitely worth making the trip uphill.
On the way back took the trail down to Middle Falls, where you do have some space to sit on the rocks next to the falls, and dip your feet in the water.
Back in the parking lot we did see a ranger making sure the parked cars had a NW Forest Pass and parking reservation, and driving back we also saw another ranger stopping cars as they entered the fee area and checking their reservations. We had printed ours out so we didn't depend on a screenshot and could display the print-out on our dash.
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