Trillium Falls Trail — Attraction in McKinleyville

Very inexperienced/unfit hiker here. The hike to the waterfall was pretty tiring actually. It’s mostly all uphill and took me about 30 minutes. The waterfall itself is pretty underwhelming, it’s just a stream haha but still beautiful with the mossy tree and the bridge. I HIGHLY recommend you keep going through the trail. It took me exactly 2 hours to complete and that’s while stopping to take over 100 photos. There are so many picturesque views, cute bridges, and trees you can climb inside.

I would never do this hike alone; there is NO CELL SERVICE and no call boxes. The only call box I saw was two roads away, at least a half mile from the parking lot. I only passed 3 other groups the entire 2 hours I was hiking so it would be hard to get help if something happened.

The first half of the hike is tough being all uphill but then the second half is all downhill, very easy and so worth it (see attached photo from my fitness watch showing the elevation changes). There are a handful of benches along the way to rest. The path is very obvious to follow so there’s no way of getting lost. There was only one spot that was a little sketchy to pass because a tree had fallen on the bridge.

My fitness watch mapped it as 3.4 miles for the full loop but I’m not sure if that’s accurate since the park sign lists it as...

5/17/24: Steady incline to the “falls” (ie- more like a trickle), but still pretty. One couple I ran into further down kept asking me where the falls were. They had already seen the trickle & because it was so small, thought they had missed the falls.

Gorgeous redwoods along the way and a beautiful view down below as you ascend. More incline past the falls, until you reach a bench at the very top. Trail then descends & comes to an area that forms a cross trail but just says “trail”. Doesn’t indicate which way the Trillium trail continues. I just kept heading the direction I was going & it brought me back to the main path from the beginning, which led to the parking lot.

Encountered a couple on the way up who were freaked out & turned around because of hey heard branches breaking and something moving quickly through the forest. Said it sounded large enough to where they didn’t want to take a chance. Signs are posted at the trailhead to be aware of black bear & mountain lion activity. Only thing I encountered was a few banana slugs. About 15 elk were grazing at Elk Meadow when I got back to my car. Video just shows some of the elk I encountered.

Entire loop is...

Trillium falls is an excellent trail. Plenty of variation, you walk directly on the forest floor. There are some really cool redwood stumps with burned out centers that you can actually walk/climb into. We even found one 200ft+ living tree that had an entirely burned out center that you could walk into and see through the top.

The falls are not very big, but the scenery around them is pretty cool.

We didn't see any banana slugs at that time, but I'm sure if it had rained anytime recently, you'd find them by the falls.

This is definitely a worthy stop, especially if you're going to continue out to Fern Canyon (which is an otherworldly, amazing experience too).

I'll call this trail moderate only because it's not easy enough for me to call it easy. It's not difficult, though. I advise hiking boots with ankle support since you're walking on the forest floor and there's lots of roots to deal with.

We took almost three hours to do it, but that's because we took a few hundred photos...