Fordyce Falls

Seventeen of us headed up the trailhead at Spaulding Lake to the cascades.  Hiking was comfortable with NO SNOW.  Warm woods, lupines, a few mosquitoes, and stable footing brought us pretty quickly the 3 miles to the cascades.  We ate a leisurely lunch enjoying the noisily rushing water as it sculpted the magnificent rocks on it's way to seeing lower ground. 

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Interestingly, the GPS's did not match up on mileage - Clarence and ours did - Frank's appeared to give us less miles.  Those who went to the falls clocked 9.5, whereas the cascades were 6.5 (approximately). 

Frank submitted an interesting picture comparison of Fordyce Falls this year and in 2008:

 

A carpool of 5 decided to take a quick look at the falls 1.5 miles beyond and then another carpool decided to go up there, too. The trail to the falls was through many wildflowers and over fallen logs. It appear that mountain bikers built the log ramps up and over them, making the going easy enough. 

Pictures roughly Maureen, Clarence, Frank - top to bottom...paragraphs all messed up with formatting attempts.