Green Mountain Falls

Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest

(map link)

A geocache alerted me to the presence of a nearby waterfall and I put it on my list of things to visit. My hike started at FS-550, a good gravel road running from Encampment to Steamboat Springs. There's actually road running more than halfway from there to the waterfall. The sign benignly states "4WD recommended". The description on the geocache said bring your ATV. I chatted with a local and asked, "So, you gonna drive it?" He laughed and said he had once and it wasn't fun at all. It also says "North Fork Encampment River Trailhead" because, once upon a time, this trail went a lot further. It continued along the north fork to join the Huston Park Trail, now the route of the Continental Divide Trail, below Red Mountain. Now it gets to the edge of the wilderness and what would have been a spur crosses the fork and stops. Good thing that's as far as I wanted to take it.

00: smooth appearing road with a sign to the right identifying the destination — My start. If this first bit of smooth road traps you into trying it, there's a small turn around at the bottom of the hill with huge rocks just around the corner.

01: big rocks on a little road — A few of the big rocks one must navigate.

The road is easy enough on foot, although there are some huge puddles. Each of these has a well established trail off road around the side. I could see in the dirt the signs that lots of people hike it. They also ride their horses on it and there's certainly a few who do drive it. A true multiuser road.

02: tree covered hills from the tree surrounded road — There are some small views of the surrounding canyon and hills from the road.

04: meadow of pools and cattails — Cattails growing in the shallow pond/meadow above the road.

05: water over a foot on the road — The road has some pretty significant standing water in a few places.

There are a couple camp sites at the end of the road where the trailhead is. It's been rebranded to Green Mountain Falls instead of North Fork Encampment River. There have been attempts to keep going by vehicles, but the land puts a stop to that nonsense pretty quickly.

06: sign at the end of the road — End of the road, start of the trail.

07: trail cross by water — Pressing onward.

08: shallow water — Bridge over a pool with little fish.

The trail crosses an inholding and there's actually a sign to mark it. The owner appears to be trying to make a bridge across the river. I hadn't seen much of the river from the road, but got a bit more view from this area of the trail.

09: signed trail — Travel at your own risk and please stay on trail the next quarter mile. Very reasonable.

10: red berries held high over pointy leaves — Loads of red baneberry made up a lot of the undergrowth.

There's a spot where very distinct trail climbs but a sign points off to the side. It's just before a stream and there are multiple crossings and returns to the lower trail before things settle out. It seems rather early for the waterfall spur, but this may be the point at which the waterfall trail diverges from the old North Fork Encampment River Trail. Only the thinnest trail continued at the top of the little climb and that included a tag marking a prospect.

11: marked not junction — Go left, not up, for the waterfall. So, what's up?

12: red berries hanging one each below leaves — White twisted stalk lets its berries hang.

13: long fat trumpet flower with a face — Lewis' monkeyflower were here, but looking a little sad and old.

It began to rain. I was expecting some in the afternoon, but it was early. It was also very light and came and went and in the forest could be easily ignored. There were finally some good views of the river.

14: water over rocks — North Fork Encampment River.

There's a hitch to tie up your horses before a narrow bridge signed foot travel only. There's some old cuts, but the bridge is the end of any recent trail work. The water it crosses is the Huston Park Wilderness boundary and there's even a nice wilderness sign for this trail that only gets a few feet into the wilderness. After jumping over a few trees, I came to a "Green Mtn Falls" sign which must be considered the end of the trail. People have pushed on from there along the side of the water above, but this is not the old trail. The falls are on a tributary and the old trail went up the fork itself.

16: bridge over fork — Luxury bridge over the north fork and some apostrophe abuse.

17: creek really — North Fork Encampment River looking pretty small under the bridge.

18: wilderness sign — Briefly back in Huston Park Wilderness.

The waterfall is, well, not actually a waterfall. It's a very pretty cascade, especially if you can catch it in the sun. I tried to catch it so as thick clouds moved past overhead. The rocks it comes over probably surge with the snowmelt and are slippery if wet. Fortunately the little rain wasn't enough to wet them as I walked around. When I did dip one shoe bottom in the water, I had to dry it off before I could move without slipping again.

20: water over rocks — Waterfalls have a greater verticality in my book.

21: swirl of water — The very top of the cascade.

24: all around view — View from the top of Green Mountain Falls.

26: water cuts rock — There's some great channels cut into the rocks by the water.

28: long fur brown caterpillar on purple flowers — A caterpillar munches on some fireweed.

29: large steps — An upper section of Green Mountain Falls. (Still a cascade in my opinion.)

31: water along diagonals — A lower section of Green Mountain Falls.

I got tired of waiting for the sun for the lower section after much snacking. I was expecting rain all afternoon anyway. I scrambled through the trees back toward the bridge only to find that that, too, was trail.

32: leaning sign in the trees — Lots of trails with signs right around the waterfall.

Of course the sun came out when I was 5 or 10 minutes down the trail and it stayed that way. It was just particularly cloudy and a little dribbly while I was near the waterfall. Excellent timing.

33: aspen and pines surrounding a dirt track — An excellent representation of the niceness of the rest of the day.

34: fluttering leaves — Pondering the aspen among the pines.

35: yellow wings — The yellow-green of a clouded sulphur.

36: camps by the sign — Back to the road.

There's a road that splits off upward that's not on my map. I explored it a little way expecting to find a camp, but it just kept on going. Maybe it accesses the inholding.