Trail Talk: Hidden Falls Regional Park – South Legacy way to Hidden Falls Access Trail

Location: Hidden Falls Regional Park

Difficulty: Easy-Moderate

Distance: 2.5-3 miles. I didn’t record on my Fitbit, but this is our best guess from the trail descriptions and online creeping for help. 

Time for us to Complete: 1.5 hours

Cost: $8 for parking. If you are going on the weekend or a holiday you must reserve your space online before you go. Thisis nice because you have a guaranteed spot when you get there. 

Parking: Single Parking lot. 

Directions: There is only one entrance so just follow the signs. It’s located at 7587 Mears Place, Auburn, CA and located between the communities of Auburn and Lincoln. 

Preparation:

Heat Index:  This Park is located near Sacramento Valley . We were lucky enough to be in the area in January so it was sixty degrees and overcast. However, in the summer this area will get 90+. 

The Journey

To get to hidden falls you will connect the South Legacy Waytrail to the Hidden Falls Trail. The South Legacy Way trail is classified as easy. You’ll take this until you cross a bridge and then take the first left. Here the Hidden Falls Trail starts, and this portion is classified as moderate. Both paths seemed to have the same amount of elevation gain/decline, the only big difference we noticed is that the “easy” classified trails were wide with gravel and the “moderate” classified trails were narrow with dirt. This is a very design your own path trail system, as there are several other trials you can start or take and still end up at the destination of the waterfalls. I got to take my mom with me on this hike and we had a blast. I wish we could have stayed and explored more but were in a time crunch to get back to town for fundraiser event for the PCT association! 

The Falls

I love waterfalls. If its water and it falls I am the happiest person in the world so any recollections here may be biased. The Hidden Falls trail follows along the river and eventually twists you back to an observation deck for the falls. They are beautiful. The falls are fed by the western Sierra Nevada range and when we went the river was flowing! It was a great spot to stop and enjoy. If you are more adventurous you can climb down to the river as well and there are places to swim when it gets warm.

The Baby Falls

If you can’t get enough of falling water climb up back to the trail and finish it out until it connects to the North Legacy Waytrail. From there cross the large bridge and you will see stairs to another observation deck that overlooks Canyon View falls. These ones are little compared to the main event at Hidden Falls but worth the extra trek as the view from the bridge is delightful. 

The Park

The park is great, well organized, and clean. They have portable bathrooms strategically located throughout the park which is always nice. They have a good variety of trails from easy to difficult and good varied lengths that you can combine for any size length you wish to achieve. Their site claims 30 miles of multiple use trails and they have great placards throughout the park providing informative information about the surrounding area. It also looks like this is also a great place for horse back riding and mountain biking as we saw several of both while we were out there and I heard a few mountain bikers raving about the trail quality One of my favorite parts is that they limit visitors to the park to only the number of vehicles that can fit into the parking lot, and those who purchase a parking lot space have that space reserved all day.  I can’t wait to go back.

 

Until next time, Happy Roaming!