Franklin Falls
Franklin Falls is a very popular destination in the Snoqualmie Pass area. It’s smack-dab in the middle of I-90 in fact, in an area created by a split between the east and west bound lanes. In the summer, it’s a short and very accessible hike… less than 3 miles round trip. The parking situation in the winter adds up to 5 miles to that, depending on where you park and how packed the road is. For this trip, we took a different approach, parking at the base of The Summit at Snoqualmie ski area, walking under I-90 and following a forest road to where it met the Wagon Road trail less than a half-mile from the falls. After visiting the falls we hiked down the main trail about another half-mile to an overlook before stopping for our lunch break and then heading back the way we came.
This put us at 5 miles round trip, nearly on the nose. I would have liked to do more, heading down to the main trailhead and back up the road, like a few from our group did, but we were pressed for time and had to get back to town for a dinner thing. Besides the time savings, I’m glad we took this route because it wasn’t as crowded, and afforded some very different views. I’ve done this trail half-dozen times now… so the change in scenery was very much appreciated. The down-side, we were really hoping to catch the falls in a frozen state, as it makes it just all that more impressive. We didn’t.. as some in our group said… “we were robbed”. Pun intended.
Here’s some additional photos from the trek…
