Autumn Adventures: Wallace Falls State Park

October 25th was a very chilly, but sunny day, and Mr. D and I decided to head north, to Wallace Falls State Park in Goldbar. I've hiked here before, but the last time was at least three years ago. This time, we decided not to hike up to the middle and upper falls, but to explore a new spur off the main trail, and then to hike part of the way up the Wallace Lake trail (we didn't have enough time to do the eight-mile roundtrip to the lake on this day). So take a good look at the little picture in the photo above, because that's all you get to see of the falls in this post.

Just because we didn't go to the falls, does not mean that we didn't see some wonderful sights. This started before we even reached the start of the trail. Just beyond the parking lot, there is a wide vista where you can see the surrounding peaks in this part of the Cascades. There are also tall high voltage power lines, but on this sunny day, they looked like they were leading our eyes right up to Mount Baring on the horizon.

Once we were on the trail, we followed the Wallace River for quite a while, and we enjoyed looking down at the rushing water below us.

Mr. D mentioned that there was a short loop off of the main trail, the Small Falls Interpretive Trail, that had recently opened, and so we decided to explore it. The trail led us to Small Falls, a little tributary of the Wallace River:

We also came upon a tree stump covered with many tiny mushrooms:

We got back on the main trail, and then branched off on the Wallace Lake trail. We headed away from the river and into some of the most beautiful forest I've seen in a long time.  This is temperate rain forest, so there was moss hanging from the branches of almost every tree.

The angled autumn sunlight was magical:

Oh, and remember what I said about no views of the falls? Well, I didn't realize that the wonderful river cascade that is at the bridge is actually the Lower Falls. Our turnoff to the Wallace Lake trail was just above the bridge, so we walked down there and I shot a bit of video so you could hear the sounds of the water. Enjoy!