Beautiful Sunday morning hike. Arrived around 8am and was the first car in the lot. Toilets stocked with TP. The falls are flowing after the rain we had earlier in the week and the fall colors were popping. A few trees were down over parts of the trail but they were easy to navigate around.

Great fall hike to a mostly dry Snoquera Falls today. We pulled into the Camp Shepard Trailhead lot at 10:00 and only one car was in the lot. The vault toilets were open and had TP.  Fall foliage was amazing brilliant yellows and a hint of red still showing.  I imagine in a week with a good wind you will be hiking in a dark green and brown forest. Truly a pleasure to catch the fall color change. The entire trail was saturated, well drained soil and leaf debris throughout. We made a clockwise loop and the rocky section had a few downed deadfall trees that caused several boulders to land on the trail. We stopped for a nice lunch / rest break where the trail meets the base of the falls at noon. We saw 3 chipmunks and that was it for wildlife.  A very quiet, solitary hike as we had the whole loop to ourselves. Another fantastic day out in nature with friends.

After checking on the trail head to Sheep Lake and finding rain, dreary clouds and fog, with sloppy snow and zero views, we drove back out of the cloud bank to this our plan B hike.  Just one other car in the lot, out houses decent but dark. 

Temps were only in the mid 40s but we soon warmed up on the brisk climb up the short side of the loop toward the falls basin.  The trail on this side of the loop is just a smooth carpet dream.  Signage seems better than I remember passing the back of the Camp Shepherd amphitheater, although the left turn junction about halfway between the camp and falls is unmarked.  I think if you go straight by mistake you will then be on the Buck Creek trail.  No water in the falls and the creek crossing is dry but we had come for the fall color and that was overflowing just about everywhere we looked.  On the far side of the dry creek we started our slow descent crossing multiple talus fields, or may be the same ones multiple times.  There was one rock fall pile to climb over and then several sections of semi gnarly rocky tread, some quite soft and moving under foot after our recent rains.  I finally busted out my poles on a section that seemed rudely steep only to find some rocks steps a few paces further down.  That seemed to be the grand finale and then we were on the long lazy switchbacks down to the meet the White River trail on the far side of the loop.  If I were doing this again I would for sure come up the long loop way as climbing up the sometimes loose rocks would be a lot easier.  No blow down issues but we did step over a few things and bent under a maple that might be headed to the ground soon.

The fall display of color was certainly at peak with all sorts of colors on show from yellow through peach to burning ruby red.  Many of the trees were also draped in hanging lichens as extra decorations.  Blue skies, gray granite and then shadows of dark green moss under the trees rounded out the color display.  Some fungi including orange coral fungus.  Everything smelt so woodsy too.  Just a gorgeous fall hike.

Finally back at Camp Shepherd we added on the loop around the nature trail to get a bit more mileage, bringing us to just under five.  No really great place to picnic so we headed to Fed Forest state park for that.  It's still open and has some lovely color too.

Started at the Buck creek trailhead, just off the 410. This is just after the drive to camp shepherd. Room for several cars. Hiked East towards the white river trail. Joined the connector up to the snoquera loop trail.

Lots of amazing autumn colours.

Amazing trail, so very good. 4.5 miles.

The rain adds to the hike.

Out and back to the falls on the shorter more direct counter clockwise direction. We had the trail to ourselves today and it was warm and sunny with beautiful fall colors. The falls are just a trickle you can see from the creek crossing which is dry. Saw and heard a pika which I’ve never seen there before! It was adorable. One tree down you can go under, all the others have been cleared. Met some friendly mushroom hunters at the end who showed our kids their forages which was fun. With more rain the falls should increase.