Eagle Creek to Tunnel Falls Hike
From Oregon Hikers Field Guide
- Start point: Eagle Creek Trailhead
- End point: Tunnel Falls
- Trail Log: Trail Log
- Hike Type: Out and Back
- Distance: 12.0 miles (round trip)
- Elevation gain: 1640 feet
- Seasons: Year round
- Difficulty: Moderate
- Backpackable: Yes
- Family Friendly: No
- Crowded: Yes
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**Falling Hazard**
Be careful with dogs or small children on the Eagle Creek Trail. On many sections, there is a steep cliff to one side of the trail. Maybe this isn't the best trail for dogs or kids.
Hike Description
The hike to the Eagle Creek Trail's High Bridge is a popular day-hike option. At about 6 1/2 miles round trip, and with a mere 840 feet of elevation gain, this outing gives you a great balance of effort vs. reward, and will hopefully whet your appetite for return visits that take you far farther up the gorge. As compared to the shorter excursion to Punch Bowl Falls, you'll get slightly smaller crowds, more waterfalls, an additional pretty waterfall, and a lot more dangerous cliff exposure. The 2017 Eagle Creek Fire burned hot in this section of the gorge, so you will be constantly reminded of that conflagration. In addition, two bridges, the Fern Creek Bridge and the High Bridge itself, had to be replaced because of fire damage. The PCTA (Pacific Crest Trail Association) has done a magnificent job in restoring the trail, however, and the tread is in good shape. Bear in mind that it is only above the High Bridge that overnight camping is permitted on the Eagle Creek Trail.
Starting at the trailhead, pass a weir, and then follow the wide well-groomed trail above the creek for a stretch. The steep slopes above you are composed of conglomerates from the Eagle Creek Formation, sedimentary deposits laid down by the ancient Columbia River millions of years before the Columbia River Basalt Flows. In fact, you'll soon pass a large fossil tree stump, now much diminished because of the depredations of decades of souvenir snatchers. Also, you'll notice blackened conifers from the 2017 fire almost immediately, and most of the maples went up in flames but are vigorously sprouting back from their lignotubers. You'll pass into a dripping grotto festooned with maidenhair fern. Soon, you'll rise above the Eagle Creek Formation and reach cliffs of Columbia River Basalts where the trail was blasted out of the rock. Here there is the first set of handrail cables, one of several along the trail. Penstemon, arnica, and saxifrage cling to the rocky fastness. Looking across the gorge, you can see different layers of basalt entablature separated by narrower bands of colonnade. Many months, the fog hangs low in the canyon, blocking your view of the sheer basalt walls towering above you. In places the trail is narrow, and you need to take care when passing others.
Soon you'll reach your second cliff face, also with a cable handrail. The small oaks on this steep slope were burned but are coming back from their bases. Conifers at the bottom of the canyon survived the fire with a full canopy, but you'll pass through a scorched area where fireweed, thimbleberry, poison oak, and ocean spray flourish. After you walk between two large Douglas-firs, you will see up the narrow gorge to the lower horsetail of 100-foot Sorenson Falls splashing off the east rim. Then 82-foot Metlako Falls spouts on Eagle Creek itself, where it makes a tight turn east. This will be your best sighting of Metlako Falls as the former overlook, on a now abandoned spur trail off the trail ahead, disappeared in a landslide in December 2016. As you turn into a gully, you'll get a glimpse of the top of Metlako Falls across the gorge and then cross Sorenson Creek, with its round concrete steps.
At the junction with the Lower Punch Bowl Trail #440B, you can descend 300 feet down into the gorge to see Lower Punch Bowl Falls and a 2018 landslide that blocked the creek (see the Eagle Creek to Punch Bowl Falls Hike). Otherwise, stay on the Eagle Creek, and cross a massive crib wall constructed by the PCTA at a spot where the trail slid away. Soon, you'll come to the Punch Bowl Falls overlook, where you can view Punch Bowl Falls spouting into its circular amphitheater and magnificent deep pool below. You may recognize this viewpoint from photos and postcards. Please stay inside the guardrails. Every year, there is a story about someone falling from this spot and injuring themselves.
There's another view to Punch Bowl Falls as you continue along the Eagle Creek Trail, and then you'll cross the Tish Creek Bridge, this version installed in 2017 and miraculously a survivor of the fire later that year. After you cross a scree slope, the valley becomes more V-shaped with the slopes across scorched by a raging crown fire. The trail turns into a gully and passes over the Fern Creek Bridge, one of two bridges on the trail that had to be replaced after the fire. At the next scree slope, you should hear the alarm calls of the resident pikas, who survived the fire huddled in cool crevices below the surface. The trail negotiates its third cable-railed section on a high cliff with views to massive boulders that have tumbled into the creek below. At an exposed cliff viewpoint, you can see across to Loowit Falls splashing in a thin pretty veil down to a pool with a final short drop to Eagle Creek. Loowit Falls is framed by two small drops on Eagle Creek itself.
Rounding a corner at a rocky viewpoint, you can see ahead to the High Bridge, which spans a spectacularly narrow sheer-sided gorge. the fourth cabled section of the trail takes you along a cliff 120 feet above the creek. Little succulent-leaved stonecrop plants bloom here in late spring. Standing on the High Bridge, you can see down the narrow gorge and also up the creek to small cascades. The bridge was damaged in the Eagle Creek Fire, with its floorboards completely burned, so it was replaced in October 2019, with the new version being airlifted in by helicopter. (The Eagle Creek Trail didn't reopen until 2021, however.)
Past the High Bridge, walk high above the creek to get a good view, more open since the fire, of 50-foot Skoonichuck Falls, which plunges in two big tiers below a 400-foot cliff. You'll reach the location of Tenas Camp, the first area of permitted camping on the Eagle Creek Trail (but campfires are not allowed). The campsites to the right of the trail were obliterated by two large Douglas-firs, which fell in early 2017. There are a couple of small sloping campsites below the trail. From this area, you can get a view back to a pinnacle formation on the west side of the Eagle Creek Gorge; this needle had been concealed by tall conifers before the Eagle Creek Fire. A user trail takes you through high brush to the top of Skoonichuck Falls.
Past Tenas Camp, the forest was heavily burned in the 2017 fire. (A sign that used to be further uptrail described a forest fire that swept through this area back in 1902.) Pass along another cliff face to reach Four and a Half Mile Bridge, only the second time you'll cross Eagle Creek. Before the bridge, a trail leads down to the cobbled shore and a swimming hole, a nice place to cool off on a hot day. Four and a Half Mile Bridge is quite a contrast to its downtrail cousin, the High Bridge, sitting a mere four feet above the water!
Across the creek, you'll may notice little Tenas Falls, where a tributary splits around a rock to make a twin plunge into Eagle Creek. Next, you'll see the mouth of Opal Creek, which flows steeply down from the bowl below Tanner Butte. The trail crosses a rocky wash above thickets of willow on the creek. A spur leads down to some campsites, and the view up the creek is of a lush green canyon with living trees! You'll soon reach Wy'East Camp, where the former campsites along the trail have been decommissioned and staked out with "Site Restoration" signs. A path leads up to some sites on a bench above the trail, and there are more campsites below.
Over the next few miles you'll pass through several more campsites—but the nicest may be about a 1/3 of a mile past the bridge—with decent size and water access. Not far beyond is Wy'East Camp—which is the tenting equivalent of an RV Park with 7 or 8 sites—some right on top of each other! Just prior to seeing to the camp you'll have crossed Wy-Est Creek. In the summer, this is dried up completely, but in the wetter season, look to your left in the distance for a beautiful tall, ribbon-like Wy'East Falls. (There is a primitive bushwack back to a better view.)
You'll notice that the forest has now completely changed to one of maples and other hardwoods. The trail has flattened out and runs straight for awhile as the ever-present creek ebbs and flows to your right. You'll pass into the Hatfield Wilderness and the junction with the Eagle Benson Trail #434. Hikers are required to stop at the Hatfield Trailhead and fill out a free day pass. Wilderness regulations apply from this point forward. See this page for a description of these regulations.
Just as you starting to wonder how much longer? , you'll you cross two enormous talus slopes, then a section called the " the Potholes"—signaling you're approaching the homestretch.
Finally, at around the 6 mile mark, you'll turn around bend and be awestruck by the object of your journey—the 175 foot Tunnel Falls!
As the name implies, your path with pass through a tunnel behind the falls about midway up the span. Consider as you enter the tunnel, that work to build this was done in the 1910s and has been virtually unchanged since! The falls drop from the bluffs above to the creek bed below then downstream into the main Eagle Creek run. The years have carved out a striking amphitheater here. It is a breathtaking area, and easily the climax of your trip.
Avoid the temptation to climb down the loose dirt slope on the near side of the falls as so many have done before. It is neither safe nor good for the life of trail above.
This is the turn-around point for this hike. Go back the way you came.
The stretch just beyond the falls is another very exposed cliff-side pathway etched into the gorge wall. Again, a cable line is there you steady you. But nowhere has the traverse been quite so dizzying!
If you still feel like you have some energy, continue less than a half-mile ahead to the two-tiered, 200 foot tall Twister Falls (sometimes called "Crossover Falls" or "Eagle Creek Falls"). It is well worth the minimal additional effort if time affords. It is difficult to see the full span of the cataract, but more impressive is the trail to it. Many have referred to this stretch as the "Vertigo Mile". It is the most dramatic section of the hike for its vertical rise above the gorge floor. Just beyond the falls is plenty of room to take a break before heading back the way you came.
If you're looking for a campsite, the Seven and a Half Mile Camp (Eagle Creek) is in another mile, where there are about a dozen sites.
There are several backpack options that pass through Eagle Creek including loops with Herman Creek, Tanner Butte and the Benson Plateau. See also: Eagle Creek to Wahtum Lake Hike
Maps
Trip Reports
- Search Trip Reports for Eagle Creek to Tunnel Falls
Related Discussions / Q&A
- Search Trail Q&A for Eagle Creek to Tunnel Falls
Guidebooks that cover this hike
- Hiking Oregon's Geology, by Ellen Morris Bishop
- Day Hike! Columbia Gorge, by Seabury Blair, Jr.
- 60 Hikes within 60 miles of Portland, by Paul Gerald
- Afoot and Afield Portland/Vancouver, by Douglas Lorain
- 35 Hiking Trails, Columbia River Gorge, by Don & Roberta Lowe
- Columbia River Gorge, 42 Scenic Hikes, by Don & Roberta Lowe
- Hiking the Columbia River Gorge, 1st and 2nd Editions, by Russ Schneider
- 100 Hikes in Northwest Oregon, 3rd Edition, by William L Sullivan
More Links
- See more information at Splintercat.org