Lots of states have waterfalls. If you find yourself in Colorado, here’s a breakdown of the best waterfall hikes in Pagosa Springs. The one I really loved and write about the most here I’d consider one of the overall best hikes in Pagosa Springs, even if it didn’t have a waterfall!
Treasure Falls is the easiest we did of the Colorado Waterfalls since you can see it from the Highway (worth it for a quick stop).
Then you have the Piedra Falls trail, Silver Falls, and Fourmile Falls. Are there others around? Possibly.
Our choice of favorite trails was the Fourmile Falls trail.
Fourmile Falls – The Details
Trail Name: Fourmile Falls
Trailhead Address: CO Rd 645, Creede, CO 81130
Directions: Take Lewis St north and veer left immediately onto 5th St.; stay right at the junction to continue on Fourmile Rd. (CR 400 / FS 645). Stay right at the second junction to the trailhead.
Trail Length: 8.3 mi out and back trail.
Admission fee: none
Difficulty: Moderate.
Elevation Gain: 1148 ft
Dogs: allowed. Horses are allowed as well.
Restrooms: None
Parking: Plenty at the trail head.
Visited: Sept 2018
Getting to Fourmile Falls for me was as easy as sitting in the backseat of the car my new gal pals were driving, and relaxing. Have you ever talked to someone online in a facebook group, then met up with them at a campground to spend a few days together? Yes, this isn’t safe. I would tell most people to be careful. This ended up being an amazing decision and we made two good adventure friends out of it!
Hopping in the car and going means I DID have to google the trailhead address for this post. It was a nice long drive down a country road with great views. I will warn you, it’s a 30 minute or so drive from Pagosa… but boy oh boy is it worth it!!
Here is where it gets tricky. When I look at multiple websites that describe this place, they all say that the Falls are 3 miles into a 6 or so mile trail. I know that the 4 of us ladies chatted about our “6ish mile” round trip hike. None of us tracked it, but according to our fitness watches and whatnot we think it was closer to 8+ miles.
ALL of us were wearing fitbit type watches and they ALL logged over 8 miles. When looking at the AllTrails information, for “Fourmile Falls via Fourmile Stock Drive Trail” it says 6.2, but a lot of the comments say it’s closer to 8.3 miles round trip.
Anyway!
This trail is absolutely amazing. There are stunning views all around. The entire trail is surrounded by Aspen and Spruce-fir trees. It’s almost tough to ever look down at your feet because you might miss something. It goes through the woods, as well as some little open grass prairie style spots.
This entire western stretch of Colorado is one of my favorite places in the country, so I might be a bit biased.
Another one of my favorite hikes on the western slope is this one near Silverton (if you happen to be on 550).
We only saw one other group on our entire hike.
However, it wasn’t until we were near the falls, and they had hammocks hooked up and were just hanging out. How fun!
I don’t recommend eating things you find along trails unless you unquestionably know they are safe.
One of my new friends I met loves to forage, so I trusted her on this one, and we gobbled down some wild raspberries we came across.
As I’m doing some research to get the directions there… right now… I’m seeing lots of people writing reviews saying there are multiple(?!) waterfalls here.
Y’ALL. WHAT?! How did we miss this!!! We only saw one. I think. Heck.
I have a photo of a waterfall and now I can’t figure out if it’s the main one, or if it was one before that.
This is definitely what I get for starting a blog 2 years after I made this trip.
GUESS I GOTTA GO BACK lol!!!
According to this website I’m looking at… at mile 3 you’ll see Falls Creek Waterfall. At mile 4 you’ll reach Fourmile Falls. Someone else said in a review that if you keep going past that another .75 miles or so the trail gets strenuous and you can find a third waterfall. We didn’t even see where the trail continued, we all thought we made it to the end!
Did we? Who knows!
Once you get to these falls, you can relax at the bottom…. but allllso, it’s time to climb!
You can actually scale up the left side of the fall and get back behind it. It’s an absolutely amazing feeling to be standing behind this thing and watch the water falling down in front of you.
Here is where I throw in one hell of a giant disclaimer.
There were 4 of us who did this hike. 2 stayed at the base of the falls. 2 of us climbed up behind it. Out of those 2, one had no side effects and was absolutely fine.
Me? Not so much. I have general seasonal allergies (usually not an issue in Texas), and as far as I know, I’m not really allergic to anything else.
Buuuut as I was climbing back down the falls, I felt my breathing getting a little more difficult.
Apparently, I breathed in something on that hike back behind the waterfall (I’m guessing, because that’s when it hit me) I was definitely not supposed to. I was also very very unprepared because this had never happened before.
Thankfully, one of our hiking buddies DOES go everywhere prepared.
She handed me an assortment of pills including Benadryl, and pain meds and we sat at the base of the falls resting until my breathing stopped being quite as labored. It wasn’t a die type of situation, just an allergic reaction that scared the shit outta me for a minute.
By the time we hiked back, I was down to a little bit of light headedness and a bad headache.
It made it a little tough to enjoy the hike back because I had to keep my head down. Looking up and around made me a bit dizzy. I spent the rest of the day with a headache. I would compare it to that feeling I get back home in Texas when these stupid Dogwood trees everywhere all bloom on the same day and I spend too much time outside.
STILL WORTH IT.
Moral of the story: Hike with a first aid kit. For real. Huge shout out to Leslie for not being a dumbdumb like I was. I hike with a small first aid kit everywhere now, just in case.
Another thing you might want to know about this hike is that it is used as grazing land for cattle as well. In case you make it the entire way to the falls, turn and go back, and start to here odd screaming moos that you can’t figure out… those are cows. I’m used to cows. These ones… um… screamed. It started all of us.
Do this trail. It’s amazing. It’s wonderful. The views are out of this world.
Other Waterfall Hikes in Pagosa Springs
This is going to be short on photos.
Please remember I went here before I decided I wanted to start a fun travel blog. I didn’t have my phone out very often, and a lot of the above photos came from the other ladies I was hiking with.
The more popular waterfall in this area is Treasure Falls pagosa springs.
We stopped here as well.
The other short waterfall that we explored was Treasure Falls. Round trip for this one is less than a mile and it’s a little more touristy since it’s so short and easily accessible. Still worth it for a fun visit! It was only September, but that water was absolutely freezing.
Treasure Falls in Colorado
Trail Name: Treasure Falls
Trailhead Address: Along highway 160.
Directions: From Pagosa, parking is about 14 miles east, on the south side of U.S. Hwy 160 at the base of Wolf Creek Pass.
Trail Length: 0.7 mi
Admission fee: none
Difficulty: easy peasy.
Elevation Gain: 216 ft
Dogs: allowed on leash
Restrooms: None
Parking: Plenty at the trail head.
Visited: Sept 2018
Here, have a very pixelated photo of me enjoying Treasure Falls!
It was fun to hop around this place. There were more people here, but I’m betting the “busyness” of it comes and goes since it’s such a fast stop right off the road.
Two of the other really popular waterfalls in the area are Piedra Falls as well as Silver Falls.
Piedra Falls is a very easy 1 mile out and back.
Silver Falls is also short, being less than half a mile out and back. This one says it does require a 4wd vehicle to get to though.
I’d be silly not to mention somewhere in here the main attraction of Pagosa Springs. Why would you go there? THE HOT SPRINGS!!! Pagosa Springs hot springs is one of the most popular commercial hot springs in the country. It is pricey. When I went it was cheaper… and after 2020 they jacked the price up to over $60/person. It is still worth the one time stop though.
