This hike was probably one of my longer hikes. I was really excited to go because I’ve been wanting to see waterfalls all summer. My friend and I ended up hiking a total of around 13 miles. It would’ve been shorter but we decided to not go back the way we came. The hike itself wasn’t bad and wasn’t very strenuous. There was this really cool sign in the dirt made of rocks that pointed to a different path to take to the falls. We were trying to look up whether it was legitimate but there was no service so we just decided to follow it anyways.

We arrived at the site around 8:00 AM to make sure we had enough time to complete our hike before it got too hot. The first part is slightly uphill and walks you alongside the ocean.

We crossed a few bridges near the beginning of the hike. It was nice and shaded for the most part which helped us keep cool as small uphills were warming us up.

Once you get to the sign on the floor and follow that trail, you’ll end up at the very top of the falls. It took us about 3 miles before we reached the spot. Here you’ll be able to see a beautiful view of the ocean and beach. I wish we had gotten to this part later on in the morning when the sun came out as it would’ve been quite a site to see.

My friend loves photography so he brought his camera along for the hike. He ended up getting some really cool shots.

Once we finished at the top it was time to make our way down to the falls that everyone comes here to see.

As we were heading down, we saw a few little waterfalls along the way. These all led down to the giant waterfall.

What came as a surprise to us is how you get from the top of the waterfall to the very bottom where the beach is. We had to climb down an almost vertical set of rocks to the very bottom. I want to say they were only around 20 feet. It was a little scary though because you could slip very easily. Other people that were there helped us down and we helped those behind us as well. We could already hear the water as we were coming down the rocks. Once we reached the bottom we ran over to the waterfall.

The waterfall was so much bigger than I imagined. I looked so small in the picture compared to the waterfall. Even though we were warm from our hike, it was pretty chilly under the waterfall. Water was also splashing everywhere.

By the time we got down there, plenty of other people were already enjoying the beach. We took our pictures then helped others who wanted pictures as well. We looked at our map and decided we didn’t want to go back the same way we came. We decided to walk along the beach to the end where there was another trail. Along the way we saw dolphins swimming and even an otter that kept popping its head out of the water. Towards the end of the beach where the trail was we saw an unoccupied fire pit. We decided to take a break and build a fire. I’d never built one from scratch but my friend did it a lot growing up. Luckily for us, it was still slightly lit. We found some nearby dry branches and started throwing them into the pit. We found enough material to build a pretty decent fire. We took this time to refill on food and water.

We ended up staying at the pit for about half an hour trying to build the fire as much as possible. When we left we put it out for the next people to come along. We started up the trail back to where my car was. This part of the hike was a little more strenuous as a majority of it was uphill and it was already getting really warm. Once we reached the top, we took a breather and some pictures. The ocean looked so beautiful. When we looked over the edge, we could see how far away the falls were. We hadn’t realized how far we walked.

Once we were ready to go we started back on our hike. I think because we already hiked so much this part felt really long. I thought we got lost but we found our way back to the sign in the dirt leading to the falls so we knew we were going the right way. We found a little watering hole along the way.

Once we saw the parking lot we were so relieved. As much fun as it is to go rogue while hiking, it can lead to an extra long hike that wasn’t anticipated by either of us. It was a fun workout though and I’d definitely hike it again.

Happy hiking(: