Tokopah Falls Trail

Well, we overdid it! After lunch and visiting with park rangers about trails, we embarked on the Tokopah Falls Trail - utterly gorgeous. At an altitude of 7500 feet, the rocky path followed the Marble Fork of the Kaweah River through lovely forests and meadows. Up, up, and up we hiked next to the river, then up to granite cliffs (500 foot elevation gain in 1.7 miles). This is described as an "easy incline", but whooo-boy, it wasn't easy for me. Thank goodness, the weather was perfect - about 60 degrees with a gentle breeze and blue skies.

The last 1/4 mile was through a boulder field/cliffside. Young folks easily leaped from rock to rock, enthusiastically scrambling over boulders, and relaxing at the cliff's edge. We (I) slowly and carefully picked our way, stopping often (OK, really often) to rest. It took awhile and I wasn't graceful, but we made it!

Returning downhill was much faster, but still required caution with our footing. (More me than Charlie. OK, mostly me). We are both a bit footsore and tired. The entire cascading waterfall is 1200 feet. You can see the entire thing in one photo, but the rocky cliffside was very bright, and there were patches of snow, so it is hard to see which is the waterfall and which is snow. Pics show the spectacular scenery!Read more