Lover's Lane Falls

The falls are accessed from the Sol Duc Valley Road in Olympic National Park, 31 ½ miles west from Port Angeles. The trailhead is located at the end of the Sol Duc Road, 13 ½ miles from Highway 101. Hike the Sol Duc Trail for 8/10 of a mile to Sol Duc Falls, cross the river then head right, following the Deer Lake Trail. Branch right onto the Lover's Lane Trail after a short distance and follow it to the bridge over Canyon Creek, a total of about 1.2 miles from the trailhead. The falls will be just downstream. It's also possible to reach the falls by hiking the Lover's Lane Trail upstream from the Sol Duc Hot Springs Resort. Achieving a clear view of the falls requires wading through the head-height huckleberry thickets populating the forest floor to the east of the creek.Lover's Lane Falls is essentially the neglected younger sibling to nearby Sol Duc Falls, for lack of a better descriptive. Canyon Creek enters the Sol Duc River about a quarter mile downstream from Sol Duc Falls, and since the river is incised into a 75-foot deep gorge at this point, Canyon Creek has to fall to meet it. Lover's Lane Falls drops 53 feet, splitting around a craggy promontory in its creek bed, with one side plunging to the gorge floor and the other side sliding down a chute. During periods of heavy flow the falls may spread out in a broader sheet, and likewise during periods of low discharge the plunging segment of the falls is likely to dry out entirely. Just upstream from where the Lover's Lane trail crosses Canyon Creek is a second cascading fall of about 13 feet in height. While this waterfall does not quite meet our requisite to be included in the database as a stand alone waterfall (though it isn't separated by enough distance to be thought of as its own entry) it is worth mentioning here if only for its exceptional scenic qualities.This waterfall, surprisingly, does not appear to have been named despite early exploratory efforts in the valley yielding names to nearby Sol Duc Falls and one of the falls further upstream along Canyon Creek. We've named it for the Lover's Lane Trail which crosses the falls just above its brink.