Our ‘Boondockers Welcome’ host gave us several suggestions of places to see during our stay. One of those places was Paulina Falls. Well I love waterfalls and am always game to go find a new one. I love how powerful they are, the sound of the water crashing onto the rocks below is so soothing to me in an odd sort of way. There were two walks you could do to reach the falls and of course we took both.
The upper path was a very easy walk and allowed us a side view of the two falls. Located in the Newberry National Volcanic Monument which made the view even more spectacular knowing that what we were seeing was a result of volcanic activity. The drop down from the top of the falls down to the bottom is eighty feet!
We then took the 1/4 mile hike down to the bottom view point of the falls. The path winds down kind of in a switchback way and is pretty steep but being such a short walk it was definitely manageable. Both kids walked down by themselves but did hitch rides on the way back up.
Paulina Lake
After the falls we heard about a hot springs that was nearby so we decided to try and look for it. We had a very vague idea of where it was due to limited maps access but we decided to give it a shot. We got close but unfortunately we did not make it to the hot springs- we stopped at Paulina Lake instead.
The kids had been asking to swim so we stopped and let them go into the water. It was far too cold for my liking but they quite enjoyed themselves! I continued walking down the path and found the trail head to the hot springs. Later we learned that it was quite a hike to get there. We will add it to the list of places to check out next time.
