Mileage: 4.5 miles RT
Elevation Gain/Highest: 810ft/2100ft
Map: Green Trails McCoy Peak No. 333, my GAIA
Favorite Eats After Hike: Cliff Droppers, White Pass Taqueria, or just Pack A Cooler. You can learn more about these places in my Must Hike Must Eat Eating Out Guide.
Find out current conditions and as always, practice Leave No Trace. Pretty please.
Hike Details:
The Covel-Angel Falls loop is a lower level hike off the White Pass Scenic Byway that welcomes hikers year round to its series of waterfalls including one you can walk behind. Starting from Forest Road 23, the Covel Creek Trail weaves up gently along the creek’s soft waterfall cascades before coming to junction that creates a lollipop route behind Covel Falls and up past Angel Falls before descending again aside lichen and fern covered basalt walls. Shallow caves for exploring and several rock hopping opportunities across the creek offer a little bit of adventure for everyone!
My trip reports:
2/23/2020 my GAIA
It is true that this trail is definitely in need of a new guide description! Hopefully I will have time to do that soon. I was down for the weekend for a conference and luckily had time to hike this gem for the third time.
The trail does start across from the entrance for the Cisus Conference Center but at a different trailhead than the description above. The trail is flat and walks through ferns and tall pines for a few hundred yards before it intersects and joins the yellow cord-lined Cispus Braille Trail. I turned right. Shortly, I reached Covel Creek and a quaint resting spot for watching the water ripple by.
From here the trail continues along the Braille Trail briefly and you have a choice to make at a 4-way junction. Left continues on the Braille Trail, right takes you over a well-built bridge over the Covel to follow the creek on the west side and straight takes you further up to follow the creek on the east side. Both straight and right will get you to Covel and Angel Falls eventually. Both require fording the creek at least once. There are also currently a couple of downed trees at the resting spot you have to climb over.
For my loop, I went straight to meet up with an abandoned road, turned right and was once again along Covel Creek. The trail is well defined but eroding where the creek is breaking its banks.
This is also where you will soon find your first ford of the creek and a covered picnic shelter at .5 miles in. The ford takes you over to the west side of the creek to continue up (where you would have come to if you had taken a right over the well-built bridge).
Now, I could see that there was a flagged boot path that continued along the creek on the east side rather than fording so I took that to see where it went. As you will continue to read I did NOT take it back so if following this description you are better off to just ford now.
The flagged boot path was not an off trail route, meaning it has been used for quite some time even if a tad overgrown. It connected me with the forest road in another ⅓ mile that goes to the upper trailhead. I followed it to the right briefly to where I could see on my map there was a flat spot on the right and I soon saw flagging crossing the terrain. This bit was definitely off trail and not for everyone.
In a quarter mile, I was once again reconnected with the official trail on the east side of the second creek ford (where I would have been if I had forded originally rather than take the detour). I could see it was not worth the effort and I would just ford on my return trip. My detour was .3 miles and to ford is .2 miles so if you ford now the following distances are shaved by only .1 miles.
Now .85 miles from the trailhead, the trail steepened as it followed Covel on the east side and the white creek cascades increased over the stepped terrain as it moves through the gully.
At 1.25 miles, I came to the junction that forms the lollipop loop this trail is known for. Dropping down to the right, I arrived at the veiled Covel Falls and passed underneath on the rocky trail. From here the trail headed into the sloped forest on long switchbacks that currently have quite a few trees and upturned rootballs on them.
At 1.7 miles I came to another junction with the Burley Mountain Trail, turned left and head down. Okay, for the second time hiking this trail I accidentally turned UP but I luckily realized my mistake sooner than the last time. Don’t make my mistake, turn left and go DOWN.
A few switchbacks later I arrived at Angel Falls and another shallow ford that is just a rock hop. Previously I have climbed up to explore the falls a bit but with snow in the forecast and a long drive home I skipped it this time.
Continuing on, in a few hundred feet I forded again where the creek forks, this time it is a tad bit more challenging but no need to get the feet wet. The trail was level for another .6 miles and had a few snow patches. For the first time I also noticed a small cave to the right I hadn’t spotted on previous trips.
At 2.5 miles, I reached the junction with the spur to the upper trailhead and took a left to head down again. The next .6 miles, the trail traveled next to interesting cliff walls layered with shades of emerald lichen and ferns. There were even a few small caves to explore and a spot to watch my head as the trail hugged the slope. There was also another big uprooted tree that has taken away a bit of the trail.
Having finished the lollipop at 3.1 miles, I began my descent back down along Covel Creek. I reached the spot where I had come in on my detour and opted to ford the creek to the west side instead. If you don’t mind using a rather tall, mossy covered rock to hop across on, you won’t get your feet wet. I played it safe and just rolled my pants up and got one foot wet. Not a biggie as I was on my way out.
At 3.3 miles, I reached the next ford at the covered picnic area. I could have gone straight on the longer west side trail towards the bridge but decided to ford once again. There are a few boards down across the creek but watch the slick wood.
I was soon back down to the trailhead in another .5 miles for a total of 4.3 miles in 2.25 hours. The whole loop for someone who doesn’t detour or take a wrong turn would be about 4.1 miles and 900 feet ascent. In the 3 times I have done this hike, none of the fords have been challenging enough to not cross. Basically there are two trails on either side of the creek for the first .75 miles that weave and ford to get you up to the falls. Enjoy!
5/27/2017 My GAIA
This was part of our annual camping trip to the Cowlitz River and every year I try out some new trails. Last year I hiked Juniper Ridge and Tongue Mountain along with High Rock Lookout, I imagine they have a lot more snow this year. We had the kids (10 years old) with us so we picked a few more tame trails. I had hiked the Covel Creek Trail back in 2013 when training for my PCT hike, loaded with a 30lb pack. I’m sure people wondered where I thought I was going!
This trail is part of the Covel Creek Trail System and is a series of loops and junctions across from the Cispus Learning Center outside Randle, WA. For our hike, we came in from the Cispus Braille Trail and went out on the Covel Creek Trail 228A. The trailhead started by letting us know that the 2 main creek crossings had no bridge and that the Burley Mountain TH was the way to access Angel Falls. Since we were already parked we decided to see what “Bridges Removed” meant and if we couldn’t make it we would go check out the other trailhead.
A quarter mile in we hit the Covel Creek Trail and turned left at the bend in the river and viewing area and continued past where the trail leaves the Braille Trail and stays right.
Just past here was yet another junction and we took a right over a nice wooden bridge that was bottom part of a loop.
On the other side of the bridge the trail went to the left and there was a barrier on the trail to the right that looked like it just petered out. We kept left and headed along the creek on the right. We came to a dry creek bed where we had to drop down a sandy bank to logs that took us across. Was this our first “Bridge Out”?
In about 10 minutes from the beginning of this loop, we came to another junction that was the top of the first loop we would do today. We looked left where it said we could head back to the TH and saw the first missing bridge that must be what was indicated on the map and the picnic shelter on the other side of the creek. I guess if we had stayed left on that first loop we would now be crossing this to continue to the falls.
From here on the trail it wasn’t even but 5 minutes before we arrived at what must be the second missing bridge. The trail was blocked off and there was another bank to drop down. We could see the bridge in the water below, cut into pieces and haphazardly crossing the creek. Since all 4 of us were comfortable with fording creeks like this, we carefully made it across to the other side. I will say, if I had know it was going to be one of these hikes I would have worn my hiking sandals!
From here, we climbed a short distance past the cascading water to yet another junction with the Angel Falls Loop Trail 228B.
We could see Covel Falls just to the right so we took the loop counterclockwise.
This was what I remembered from my hike 4 years ago, walking down and behind the refreshing spray of the falls similar to Silver Falls State Park. Not sure which was the better option, we continued on the loop from here. Nothing here but a steep slog up a set of wooded switchbacks and I was wondering if the other side would have been the better option.
There was just one other family when we got there and I imagine most folks we would see now would be coming in from the Burley Mountain TH. We climbed up a bit closer to the base of the falls and snapped a few pictures before heading back down, opting to finish the loop to the right on the Burley trail.
The trail here was first wide and relatively flat with one broad creek crossing on a collection of logs until it came to the junction signed for Trail 228-A to the left. From here, we now dropped down along a massive basalt cliff wall that rose to our left. This pretty cool, the kids had fun exploring a few of the “caves”, even when one produced bats that had them running shortly back out. Much more interesting that the beginning of this loop!
When we got to the junction with the first missing bridge by the picnic shelter, we opted to cross here because it was a bit shorter than taking the loop back the way we had come. There were several places folks were going across and we took the simple log walk just up from the actual trail junction and where the old bridge must have been. From here we were soon on our way back to the car.
The rest of the Covel Creek Trail took us out long the gurgling water lined with ferns and wood sorrel, the sunlight highlighting this year’s new growth. The different variations of ferns were in the final stages of unfurling for summer. I didn’t remember this being such a pretty trail but I’m pretty sure the last time I was here it was raining and we were only thinking about getting some exercise and then heading back to camp to sit around the campfire. By the time we were back out on the road, it was lined with 40 more cars than when we head up. It was a beautiful day for a hike!
For more hikes in the area, visit my Mount Rainier-White Pass page. For example, you pass the trailhead for Layser Cave on the way to the this hike, another fun place to take the family.
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