Franklin Falls - Easy Hike and Breathtakingly Beautiful

Franklin Falls

After multiple, futile attempts at trying to find a cabin/vacation home to stay this July 4 weekend, Arun and I decided to explore in and around of Washington State. Interesting part was that in my extensive research of about two days, I discovered that there are about 3949+ vacation homes in the whole of WA State. Astonishing part was to find most of them booked.

As it is beautiful summer now, we decided to explore the waterfall places. The most popular and the closest one is Snoqualmie Falls, which is about 15 miles from Bellevue. We have been there so many times so we wanted to go someplace else this time. At the end of a dedicated search, we decided upon Franklin Falls.

All we knew about this falls before reaching there was that it is a round-trip 2.0 miles.  Following our recent hiking, trekking trips, I have reached a conclusion that I just don’t enjoy the treks, which are longer, say more then 5 miles of round-trip.  So, we just limit to anything with less then 5 miles of walk. This falls is located near the Snoqualmie Pass in Kittitas County, WA. 

As usual we were blown away by the wilderness. There was so much of green around, all happy faces greeting us and pretty crowded too.  The trail was really well made, with wooden logs at regular intervals. The best part about this falls was that every now and then there were diversions, so one could sit and play in the stream of water. Water, which was so clean, clear and beautiful. This region also housed many cabins. It was a lovely sight to see people relaxing at the patio and witnessing the stream of water. We took multiple breaks and not because we were tired. But we just wanted to sit down, relax and capture all the beauty. 

I am pretty careful while I walk, trek or hike mostly because I want to go back home all fine and not damaged :). But this trip is going to remembered for a long time not just for it’s beauty, also because I had a bad fall not once but twice. It was quite hilarious. As I was walking towards the slippery areas, I could hear Arun telling me not to, but I kept going and then I went boom and boom again.  Funny part was to hear a dad saying his kids; on how to listen to him and if they don’t they would end up falling like me. I was like okay my fall was useful in a way :) .

When we were about 100 feet away from the falls, we caught the sight of the falls and we went hysterical with joy. The last 100 feet of walk had to be treaded with care because it was slippery, narrow and there were lot of rocks.

First time after 2.5 years in Seattle, I was in a waterfall place and actually near the waterfall. I could feel the water on my face, wind blowing, and felt extremely happy. We sat there for another hour or so. Before returning we actually wanted to get very close to the waterfall. It was very cold and there was so much force. But we wanted to go closer and feel the beauty.  We could barely stand there for about 40 seconds, but it was breathtakingly beautiful. For a second, I thought I am going to be thrown away by the force of water. Before that could happen we bid good-bye and started walking back.

Walking back to the parking area was much faster, we discussed about paying this place many more visits before summer is gone. This place is definitely worth visiting and on your way back you can gorge on the delicious food at Aahaar (Indian Restaurant at Snoqualmie).