Panther Creek Falls
Resources:
This day trip was definitely an adventurous one. My friend from Southern California was visiting, and we wanted to go find these falls which are about 1.5 hours from downtown Portland. My trusty minivan just had it’s rack and pinion replaced (not cheap) and I thought it would be ready to go for a trip. Well, 20 minutes into the drive, the radiator began to overheat. “We could stop every few minutes and let the engine cool.” I thought. “Hell no, I'm not going to put up with that. Should we rent a Car2Go? Possibly, it’s $60 for a day. How about a car rental from the airport?” I made a few calls and it was only $30 to rent a sweet little car for the day! So we stashed the minivan in a neighborhood close to PDX and picked up the rental car to finally begin the journey.
As we drove through the Columbia River Gorge, we noticed it was completely filled with smoke! There had been a couple fires nearby in Washington. Earlier, I had looked up a map of the local fires to see if they were close, and they didn't look close to the falls, but I was beginning to second guess myself. As we drove across the Bridge of Gods, the smoke got thicker. I was worried we would get close to the falls and then get turned around and sent home due to the fires.
 |
Wild Turkeys in smokey Washington
|
If you type into your GPS "Panther Creek Falls" it will get you to this general area. There is a gravel parking lot which you will need a Northwest Forest Pass to park. Because we had taken the rental, I did not have my pass, so we just chanced it. There's a trail across the road from the parking area that leads to the view looking over the falls. Very short hike, not too steep of an incline, and it has a great view of the falls.
 |
View above the falls.
|
 |
Creek that led into the near side of the falls.
|
The view was pretty, but this did not satisfy us completely. We wanted to be right at the base. I've seen pictures from below, I knew it was possible to get down there, but I wasn't sure how. We walked back up to the road and walked down the way we had come a bit. There was a very tiny trail and we weren't sure where it led, but we decided to take it. There were parts that we had to slide down a dirt incline on our butts, hold on to vines, and there were parts that were a bit slippery. It was not easy and I was wearing flip flops (left my hiking shoes in my car) and my feet ended up very dirty. THIS TRAIL LED TO THE BASE!
 |
Trail down to base of falls.
|
The falls were magnificent from the bottom! It was sooo worth the scramble down! We stared at these falls for about 40 minutes in awe with how pretty it was.
 |
Panther Creek Falls from base
|
Looking downstream from the falls, the view was almost just as pretty. These PNW forests are so luscious and green!
 |
Downstream View
|
 |
Scale of Falls next to Michelle
|
 |
Trail from base to parking
|
We hiked back up using roots to pull ourselves up the trail back to the lot. We were pleased to see no ticket on the windshield (get a pass though). Once we got near the airport, we filled up the tank and 3 hours of driving in this car amounted to ONLY 10$! With the car rental, and the gas, (total 40$) the same amount would have been spent on my car for gas! That's a bit of an exaggeration, but it was great having a cute little car to drive around in.
No comments:
Post a Comment