I’d read last summer about a waterfall not too far from “downtown” Cherry Grove.  I roughly knew the area because of biking up Patton Valley Rd to the crest of Summit Rd where it intersected with a logging gate.

The Oregonian article didn’t give a distance to the falls, only stating that they were about “an hour”.  So we were not sure how far in we would have go.  My assumption was 2-2.5 miles.We parked off of Lees Falls Rd, right before a logging road gate.  I blatantly ignored the no parking signs since we were on a dead end dirt road and it was the weekend.  I assumed no logging activity would be happening, and I was not blocking the gate.

The “trail” is really just a dirt/gravel road owned by a logging company.  We passed a couple areas which appeared to have had some logging recently.

Turns out the falls are only about 1.75 miles in from the gate.  Maybe to some people that is an hour of walking, but even at our slow jogging pace, we were there in under 20 minutes.

We added a bit more onto our run so that we could get in about an hour.  I found out after downloading the gps track that there was another waterfall (Haines) maybe about a mile, mile and a half from where we turned around.  That gives me some incentive to head back, maybe on bikes next time though.

Codi got to run with us 100% off leash.  I felt that there was no need to worry about other hikers, walkers, etc.  We were the only car (illegally?) parked at the gate.

This was also my first run with some Brooks Cascadia trail shoes.  I think these are the model “9” series.  I know I got a killer blowout deal on them because the new “10” series just came out.

Anyways, the shoes performed well.  Neither Mia or I were really crushing it today, but the shoes were comfortable and handled the gravel quite well.

In summary, I’d say it’s a quick little jaunt out to the falls.  I’d recommend it for something different, but maybe it would be better in the heat of summer when you can head out there and do some swimming.  Another option would be do a run to both sets of falls.  I think that would give you about 8-10 miles roundtrip.

Thanks for reading

-Pete