Big Creek Falls, Ape Caves, Taylor River - Otter Falls & Lewis River Falls — Saturday, Apr. 22, 2000

Southwest Washington > Lewis River Region

Did some rainy day hikes on Sunday: Ape Cave - road snow free and open to parking lot (however parking lot itself is gated off) Toilets were in rough shape and lots of garbage everywhere - especially in the cave - how sad - return trail mostly snow covered but easy to follow Curly Creek, Big Creek & Lower Lewis Falls - as impressive as anything I saw in the Gorge the previous day. Hwy 90 completely snow free. Rush Creek Falls - This waterfall was listed in ""A Waterfall Lover's Guide to the Pacific Northwest"" by Gregory A. Plumb. It is reached by a rugged bushwack of 0.3 miles from County Stockpile 2-7 on Road#51 (The stockpile - literally two giant mounds of gray stone - is on the right hand side of the road just past mile marker 3 - 4.2 miles from the junction with Road#90) If you go there you will see a large pile of tree stumps, get past them and you will see the remnants of an old road. If you look closely you will see the first of about a half dozen sparsey placed pink flags. These lead you across the old clearcut and to the lip of the ravine. You can't see the river but if you keep heading downhill you can't miss it. We managed to get to the falls and back in less than an hour (including time for pictures). The falls were equally impressive as any of the others listed above and there really should be a more established route to find them. Hopefully this post will help generate some interest in this area. Happy Hiking David&Karen