Sunset Falls

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The fourth and final stop on the Lewis River waterfall excursion is Sunset Falls, several more miles upstream from Moulton & Yacolt Falls, just inside the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. The Forest Service's Sunset Campground is located right next to the falls, so parking is still pretty convenient even though we're way out in the middle of nowhere at this point. However since it's National Forest land you're going to need to buy a day pass in order to park legally. I seem to remember it was about $5. Because of that I stayed and watched the falls longer than I otherwise would have, in order to feel like I'd gotten my money's worth.



There's also one more twist to getting to the falls: Shortly after Moulton Falls, Lucia Falls Road veers away from the river and becomes Railroad Avenue, the road to the town of Yacolt. If you want to continue upriver, you need to turn right onto Sunset Falls Road, which will take you the rest of the way.

After Sunset Falls the road continues on into the forest as National Forest Road 42, but I don't know what condition the road's in or whether there's anything interesting up that way. Besides more forest, obviously.

Yacolt Falls

The third stop on our East Fork, Lewis River waterfalls tour is Yacolt Falls. It's on a tributary of the main river, a short hike from Moulton Falls. Tributary or not, this is far more photogenic than Moulton Falls if you ask me. A post about Yacolt Falls at Wild About the Northwest expresses much the same sentiment.



While I was here, an older gentleman who was visiting the falls saw my camera and decided he really needed to convince me to start taking photos of trains. There were railroad tracks somewhere nearby, apparently, and trains occasionally rolled by carrying stuff, and apparently the process was so fascinating and needed to be documented meticulously, and I ought to drop everything I was doing and go wait an open-ended amount of time for the next train to rattle past.

Needless to say, I passed on his proposal and hit the road for the next waterfall.

Moulton Falls

The next stop on our tour of Lewis River waterfalls is Moulton Falls, about 4.5 miles upstream of Lucia Falls. Moulton Falls is in Clark County's Moulton Falls Park, and like Lucia Falls, it's a short, easy walk from the parking lot right off of Lucia Falls Road. Rather than include another Google map this time, here's a photo of the official park map:



Moulton Falls is the one on the left on this map. The map shows another waterfall just upstream (to the right), but it was more of a ripple, a rapid at most, and I didn't bother taking any photos of it. The waterfall on Big Tree Creek is Yacolt Falls, which is really the park's main event if you ask me. We'll get to that one in a subsequent post.



The "no touching the river" rules apply here too, just so you know. I don't find these rules particularly onerous, I have to say; when I go somewhere like this, generally I'm lugging a camera around. So going in the river and getting wet is pretty much the very last thing I want to do. Ok, meeting up with a cougar would be worse, as would a Deliverance-style run in with hostile locals (which could be a serious possibility, if the belligerent Tea Party-type political signs I kept seeing along the road are any indication). But getting the camera wet would be right up there behind those.

Lucia Falls

Today's adventure takes us north a bit, to Lucia Falls on the East Fork of the Lewis River, NE of Battle Ground, Washington. This is the first of four Lewis River waterfalls you'll encounter while driving east/upstream on Lucia Falls Road. Three of them are pretty much right next to the road, too, so there's barely any hiking involved. This stop on the tour is clearly marked as Lucia Falls Park (operated by Clark County), which consists of a parking lot, a short, easy loop trail, and the falls.



Oh, and a bunch of signs explaining firmly that you are not supposed to go swimming, or diving, or rafting, or inner tubing here, and there's no fishing allowed, and, in short, you're not permitted to so much as touch the water, ever. And it's not for your protection, either, but for the endangered salmon. Which sounds kind of ridiculous and draconian until you realize there are no dams between Lucia Falls and the ocean. So the thinking is that the salmon on this branch of the Lewis River are maybe not quite as doomed as most salmon populations are, and they're going to great lengths to keep it that way. There may actually be a court order to that effect; I haven't been keeping track that closely, but it wouldn't surprise me.

One upside to the falls being a protected place is that at the right time of year you can come and watch salmon try to jump the falls on the way to their spawning grounds. There are a lot of other places you can go to fish or ride an inner tube down the river, but far fewer places -- at least accessible ones -- where you can see salmon doing their thing. So there's that.


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If you're unfamiliar with the area and need to find Lucia Falls Road first, it's reasonably simple. First go to Battle Ground, either SR 502 east from I-5, or SR 503 north from Vancouver. SR 503 is also known as 10th Avenue within Battle Ground, so you either stay on it, or turn left onto it, depending on which way you're coming from. After you're out of town, SR 503 also goes by Lewisville Highway. Drive north until you get to Rock Creek Road and turn right. It curves south & becomes 152nd Avenue. The road then curves right and becomes Lucia Falls Road (although a dead end part of 152nd also continues south). Once you're on Lucia Falls Road, all you need to do is watch for signs that say "Falls" on them.

trillium, yacolt falls