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| Hiking | 6.04 Miles |
945 AEG |
| | Hiking | 6.04 Miles | 3 Hrs 8 Mns | | 2.21 mph |
| 945 ft AEG | 24 Mns Break | | | |
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| partners | | Our next stop in the Colorado tour was to try to find the elusive Little Hawaii falls. We had already attempted to park for this one the day prior, but hadn’t realized that you literally have to park right in town and there are little to no spots typically available. Thus, we got up early and headed there first thing Sunday morning and were able to snag a spot immediately. The parking is free on Sundays as well, so that was a bonus.
This is truly a hidden gem of telluride so I won’t be sharing my route, but I’ll give some details of the adventure we had trying to get there! The only info we had was a vague screenshot from a blog. There was no pin anywhere that we could find on this one so we were definitely winging it.
The hike starts with a long uphill on a wide hiking path. I wasn’t feeling great this morning as the altitude had gotten to me a bit and I’d had a freezing cold, windy, sleepless night. I was very pleased once we finally found what we thought was our turnoff to head off trail. The blog had no mileage info, so it was just a guess.
We headed through a lush forest area and had to get creative crossing the creek twice. One was a sketchy log bridge and the other was rock hopping over a mossy wet area. Then we walked through some tall ferns to try to find a social path leading to the falls. Our first choice wasn’t right so we tried another and were able to get a nice view of the falls from the top. We took a few different paths but couldn’t find one that was heading down to the base of the falls.
We opted to backtrack a bit and did finally find a path that looked promising to lead us to the base of the falls. This path was extremely steep with loose dirt and just overall pretty sketchy. We did finally get to the bottom of the creek though. The path had led us downstream from the falls so we were looking for a solution to get us further up the canyon. Directly in front of us was too sloped to continue, and there looked to be a faint path across the creek that I thought was promising. The main problem was that it was cold out and the canyon area was shaded, which meant freezing cold water. I started to cross the creek but stopped in the middle to assess the girls’ willingness to continue, as I couldn’t see any possibility of staying dry during this crossing.
It looked like we were right around the corner from the base of the falls, but we could not see if we’d cliff out or not if we did get across. After lots of discussion, the girls weren’t willing to cross there and I wasn’t going to go alone, as it looked too dangerous to attempt solo. No one had brought extra shoes and we had other hikes planned for that day, so I understood. We had to make a decision of trying to backtrack up to the top and attempt a different social trail that could perhaps lead us closer to the base, or just calling it quits and heading to our next destination. Given that we’d been out there for hours already and there was no way to predict if we could get there without getting totally soaked, we did collectively decide to bail on this one.
I was extremely disappointed as this was my top choice for the whole trip. However, the views just from along the creek and from the top of the falls were stunning so I’m glad we at least got to see those. I’ll be returning to these falls to get to the base when it’s warmer and/or with extra footwear for sure!
None of the blogs we’d read had said anything about needing to walk in the {ice cold} water to reach the base of the falls. After we finished I did some additional inquiring from people who have been and did confirm there is no way to get there without walking in the water. One even mentioned almost getting hypothermia from the cold water!  I feel satisfied with the extra knowledge I have that I’d be able to get back there and fully succeed at seeing the falls from the bottom. Sometimes hikes are a learning experience and that’s okay too! |
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| Restless between adventures... |
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