This is one of my favorite trail areas, but it's got quirks.

Parking is nearly always shut-- The situation seems to be that it is a privately owned parking lot, heading to a state owned trail.  Whoever owns it has only had the gates open once in all my visits.  Don't worry though-- Just cross the bridge and park at the springs just beyond it.  They are gorgeous and blue, and the water is delicious.  Walk back across the gorge bridge, take in some incredible views, and walk into the Franklin trailhead, across the parking lot and through the second car gate.  There's a little footpath around the car gates, and signage only states no cars are allowed when it's shut, nothing about people on foot.

The confusion on getting in seems to have left this trail largely unpopulated-- I rarely run into other hikers here, which can be very peaceful.  You will see a sign indicating you're entering state park land a short walk past the parking lot.

The walk to the cemetary can be broken into 3 legs.  One to the minecart, which is a very wide uphill path, one to the mineshaft (left path from the cart), which is a bit more narrow but still maintained, and one last leg into the cemetery.  Ignore a left hand path that breaks off when you get closer to the cemetery-- it's crudely marked as the wrong path with a few sticks.  There was a pretty substantial washout on the leg into the cemetery, but it's still accessible with some careful stepping through that area.  The remaining foundations I've seen in the past were wholly covered in bramble this time, unfortunately.

Then once you're in the cemetery, it's become very badly overgrown.  I came here with shears in my kit since I knew the bramble tends to get a little narrow through there, but it was really pretty impassible this time.  You can still see the old suspended railing where the town's water pipe used to be, a sign about the restoration, and a single grave, but otherwise the bramble is overgrown enough that my shears weren't enough to make any kind of decent time through there, and it's spider season, so that was extra fun. I could see where paths should be, but I think it will be wholly lost if it's not cut back over the winter.

Hope this area gets some love, it's a beautiful area with a lot to see.

A great day hike! Mid day on a Saturday I was surprised to find we had the trail mostly to ourselves.

Turn right at the coal car: It was a clear wide path but the sides were very overgrown by blackberries and vines this time of year so only a few foundations could be seen. 

Turning left at the coal car: The mineshaft was impressive and beyond that was the path to the cemetery. This part was narrow, one way, steep drop off on one side and had a few small trees across the path.  It was just the beginning hiker adventure we were looking for and had fantastic views! 

I don't know if the right/left paths loop around, it was too overgrown to find out.

Parking/Trail head: the coordinates take you to a closed service gate at the trail head, the parking is a short walk before the bridge.  The bridge was beautiful I wish we had the energy to explore the falls too!

No bathrooms, No garbage cans, no cell service, plan accordingly

Note: Instead of hiking to the ghost town, we chose to take the short trail down to the river. This report is limited to that trail.

After checking out Holder Creek and Kanaskat-Palmer State Park, we drove to this hidden trail to see what we could find. The parking situation is very odd - the trail starts on the west end of the Green River Gorge bridge, and a sign there indicates that parking is $5. However, the entire lot is gated off, making it useless. To add further confusion, there was a car parked in the lot, behind the gate. I'm not sure how it got there - maybe they know the owner?

To solve this problem, we parked at the Green River Gorge Resort, across the river from the trailhead. Despite it being a very rainy afternoon, there were plenty of people milling about the resort grounds. It appeared that parking was free. We walked across the high bridge (there is a sidewalk, but wouldn't recommend for small children or those with a fear of heights), and entered the parking lot. At the far end, a road leads away to the ghost town. We chose to go down towards the river on a very rough, steep trail. There are some makeshift steps that help a little, but going down requires much caution.

After descending a couple hundred feet in a quarter mile, we reached the end of the trail - a rocky landing spot. The view of the river is quite awesome, especially today with the high water flow. There were kayakers in the river, and they were ending their journey here, climbing up this trail to reach their cars. The trail is already steep enough - imagine having to carry a kayak up too!

Going up was difficult, but manageable. I would definitely recommend a good pair of shoes and strong legs. There were some other spur trails that showed up on CalTopo, but we didn't explore them today. Once back at the parking lot, we retraced our steps over the bridge and back to our car. Apparently there is a much better built trail on the resort side of the river that leads to a waterfall. It looked like the entry fee was $5 for that hike. We didn't check it out this time though.

Overall this was a very steep hike down a poorly built trail, but the payoff was great views of the Green River. Total stats were 0.8 miles, 180 feet elevation gain.

On the Saturday we arrived, the gate to the parking area was closed: people parked at Green River Gorge Springs and walked over the bridge and past the gate to access the trail. Minor obstacles getting to the cemetery area, which is overgrown to the point of allowing one-way access only, with the occasional bramble jutting into the path. In and back access only: the “Hanging Gardens Park Acrd” shown on maps does not pass all the way through and was itself difficult to navigate to the halfway point where it stopped. An okay hike all-in-all, come for the cemetery and mineshaft, but if you’re in it primarily for the hiking there are better options.

RWHG thoroughly explored the Franklin Ghost Town site today.  It was 38 degrees when we started at 9:30 with partially cloudy skies.  A light dusting of snow covered the ground but was melting quickly.  There are no toilet facilities here so plan to green door.  We took the crushed gravel trail uphill SW to the Old Franklin Town site where a lone Coal Car remains.  Most of the site is totally overgrown with blackberry vines and ivy. Large cement footing structures were spotted in a few places along our route.  Following the coal cart line trail west, you come to the Franklin Mine shaft 1,300’ deep below ground and on to the remnants of the cemetery.  Today only about 5 of the headstone were visible, others obstructed by 6’ high berry vines.  Trying something new we wound our way down the SE Green River Gorge road to the Black Diamond water supply pump building just above the river.  A hanging suspension bridge (for city water dept use only) crosses the river to Black Diamonds 3 water aquifer pumps.  We stopped halfway back up the hill on some cement structures and took a lunch / rest break bathed in sun.  Consulting All Trails and Google maps we choose a different route back to the TH.  All on roads through the forest and back onto the Green River Gorge Road that looped back to the Franklin Town site.  A few spring flowers have started to bloom, periwinkle, Indian plum and daffodils planted near the cemetery.  Wildlife was limited to a bunch or robins and lone blue jay flitting in the cottonwood and maple trees above the trail.  New snow was showing on all the surrounding foot hills and one overhead cloud dropped a few snowflakes our group for about 5 minutes. Not Mt Rainier sighting today.   It was mostly sunny when we pulled out the parking area at 1:50.  Another fantastic day out in nature exploring with friends.