The hike to 150-foot Tamanawas Falls is an easy one that runs along scenic Cold Springs Creek and has a pretty spectacular payoff for such little work!
The day after the horrible Eagle Creek Fire started in the Gorge, we escaped to Mt. Hood National Forest, where it was much less smokey, but still so much so that it was pretty difficult to see the outline of the highest mountain in Oregon. Because of the conditions, we opted out of the longer and more strenuous Ramona Falls hike we hadplanned, and decided on the shorter, easier hike to Tamanawas Falls.
The smoke must have deterred the crowds we heard would be on this trail, especially on a summer holiday weekend. We passed very few people on the way to the falls. And although the smoke definitely wasn’t ideal, it cast an eerie, but kinda awesome red-orange hue over the forest that made it look almost like a perpetual golden hour.
The trail starts off near Sherwood Campground (sidenote: it’s pretty great that the campgrounds at the base of Mt. Hood are called Sherwood and Nottingham) and quickly crosses a bridge over the East Fork of the Hood River. It’s very steadily uphill for about a half mile until you turn left around the corner and away from the highway into the canyon. From here you’ll descend toward Cold Spring Creek and cross another bridge to the other side of the creek where you’ll follow it upstream all the way to the falls.
Cold Spring Creek is a pretty, scenic little creek with several mini waterfalls along its course. The trail is pretty shady the whole way, which we were thankful for on this warm late summer day.
When we looked this hike up online prior, we were warned (there was a sign at the trailhead as well) that there was a rock side blocking the trail towards the end and that it was potentially “dangerous to navigate.” When we came upon the rock slide, though, it looked as if the Forest Service had set up a route to follow and it was pretty easy to climb over. There were a few large, loose rocks but we didn’t feel uneasy at any point.
You’ll catch your first glimpse of Tamanawas Falls just a few minutes after getting past the rock slide:
Tamanawas Falls is one of those waterfalls catches you off guard when you finally come upon it – at least it did for us. Despite seeing many pictures of it beforehand, it was taller, wider, more picturesque, and frankly just more awesome in person than we were expecting!
Take away the trees and bushes and you’d think you were in Iceland staring at one of their classic basalt waterfalls.
You can walk right up to the base of the falls or even up into a cove behind it. Be super careful as the the spray from the falls makes all of the rocks and moss extremely slippery.
We probably spent at least an hour hanging out at the falls because they were just so picturesque and the spray kept us nice and cool. There are tons of great photo opportunities and there weren’t hoards of people hanging at the base photo bombing. Not surprisingly people would walk up, snap a selfie, and be on their way.
Around noon, tons more groups, especially families with small children, started showing up, so we headed back down the trail looking forward to grabbing some lunch at the Timberline Lodge.
All in all, a great, easy hike in the Mt. Hood area with a great payoff that we highly recommend!
