Great first hike to Little Mashel Falls and will definitely be back. Especially looking forward to visiting when the trail isn't quite as muddy. We were glad to have our trekking poles!
We started from the Eatonville site and found the signage good the full way from Center Street to the Little Mashel Falls trailhead. To start, we hiked all the way up to the top past each of the offshoot trails for the different falls. At the top of the trail, you reach a gravel road, and we went left on that for a while to look down on the uppermost falls from the railroad tracks. We then worked our way down, visiting each falls as we went. This turned out to be a nice way to do the trip.
Getting to the upper falls was the most difficult. Lots of pretty thick mud and quite a few trees down to get far enough over that you could get a good look at the falls. Well worth the effort, though. For the middle falls, I recommend visiting both the top and the bottom of the falls. Amazing views from both vantages, and the falls were much larger than the photos suggested. At the bottom of the middle falls (the largest of the three), be prepared to get pretty damp from the spray and watch out for the slick rocks, depending on how close you venture. The lower falls was pretty easily accessible, though the trail to it does go down quite a ways (requiring you to then go back up quite a ways).
Keep in mind with the various ups and downs of going to the different falls that the elevation gain and distance is probably more than 5 miles round trip from the Eatonville starting location. If you're going in the spring, I definitely recommend good waterproof boots and trekking poles.
Only downside to this trip was that there was quite a bit of trash at various points. We picked up lots of empty beer cans and water bottles, so bringing a set of gloves and a trash bag would be a good idea.
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