Franklin Falls - Winter, Wagon Road Trail — Saturday, Dec. 10, 2022

I decided to take our dog out for a hike in the snow, since I was skiing a lot this week and he deserved to enjoy the snow a little, too. It worked out great and we both had a lot of fun. Took the Franklin Falls Trail on the way there and broke the Wagon Road Trail on the way back for more adventure.

The NF-5800 road to the summer Franklin Falls trailhead is obviously already closed for the winter, so the cars park near the highway. It was easy to get there from Exit 47 and when we came there just before 10am there were about 18 cars parked by the road. On the way back, lot more cars came but some already left, so it was still pretty easy to find a parking spot by the road. 

The trail was packed snow, some truck drove about 2 miles up the forest road, so it was pretty comfortable. I did put on the micro spikes but it wasn't really necessary. I took the snow shoes but these were also unnecessary because the trail was packed well enough. The Franklin Falls trail was also packed and easy to walk on, I wouldn't even say micro spikes were necessary because the snow was pretty fresh and the trail was in a good condition. One tree fell over the trail and was hanging above, hopefully it will fall all the way soon with no-one under.

We walked down to the falls because it seemed safe enough and took a short break before getting back. 

On the way back, we decided to follow the snowshoe trail to go via Wagon Road Trail, but the snowshoe trail went up to the road eventually so we had to break the trail most of the way back. I put on snowshoes because it would be too much without them.

Breaking the Wagon Road Trail was pretty difficult because the snow was pretty soft but wet, and even with the snowshoes, I was up to the knees and often even deeper in the snow. We got off the trail in a few places so we didn't do the best job breaking it (sometimes we were obviously off the official trail), but we did a reasonable job. It was hard to find the Wagon Road Trail in such a deep snow, there were maybe 3 feet or more of new snow in most places and there were no signs of anyone taking this route after the snow set in. But we managed to get through and were happy to see the road near the parking lot eventually. I almost regretted taking this tougher route back, but it was good practice for both me and my dog. Good exercise, too.

The part along the forest road and the Franklin Falls Trail was pretty fast, but we were pretty slow on the way back due to the deep snow. Altogether it was about 3:19 moving time, but if we took the Franklin Falls Trail back, I think it would be more like 2:30 or so. Total distance on GPS shows as 7.24 miles, probably some extra due to the suboptimal path along the Wagon Road Trail. 

It was beautiful there, a lot of snow, icicles near the waterfall, a beautiful winter hike. Will do again soon. The dog enjoyed the hike tremendously though he had to work hard in the deep snow (and so did I). He likes snow a lot but I think today he had enough. Not too many people, I expected a lot more, just met a few groups of hikers along the way.