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There were still plenty of cars on either side of the road as we parked at
the Proxy Falls trailhead. After paying the iron ranger, we started off on the
trail (Note, I forgot to start my GPS until about 20 seconds in, just
in case you are a bit confused by the track.)
The trail is meant to be hiked as a loop, in a counter-clockwise direction.
It actually says this at the trailhead. This is probably meant to make the
trail seem less crowded than it is, which is a good thing considering how
popular it probably is. Even though we saw a lot of cars, we didn't see
many people on the trail. Though we did see a few people hiking in the wrong
direction.
The trail starts out over some volcanic rocks before entering the forest.
We soon came to an intersection. We went right to the overlook for Lower
Proxy Falls. It looked like the falls were not nearly flowing at full
strength. It's about 200 feet tall, but it's not all that impressive
from the viewpoint. Many people continue down to get a close-up view of
the falls, but since it was late and this was our third hike of the day,
we decided to turn around here. It sounds like it is well worth it to
go down to the falls if you have the time.
Volcanic rocks
Volcanic rocks
Lower Proxy Falls
We returned to the main trail, then continued on to the next intersection.
Here we turned right to visit Upper Proxy Falls. The trail leads directly
to the pool at the base of the falls. To get a better view, we had to
scramble over a large downed tree. From here, we had a nice view across the
pool and up to the falls. The falls were pretty nice; my pictures
didn't really do it justice. It's better being able to actually hear the falls.
One interesting thing to note is that the pool has no visible outlet. Apparently
the water just flows into the volcanic rocks below.
Upper Proxy Falls
Upper Proxy Falls
Upper Proxy Falls
Upper Proxy Falls
We returned to the main trail, then continued along the trail, eventually
exiting to the road near the trailhead.
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