Phantom Falls — Attraction in Oroville

This review is for Phantom falls trail. This is a moderate, mostly non-shaded, rocky, 4 miles out-and-back trail, with beautiful wildflowers along the way. It is quite popular with hikers and the parking lot gets full easily and be ready to park on side of the road and walk towards the trailhead. Do remember to buy the CDFW land pass either at home or using a scannable bar code(which allows you to buy one) right before the trail entrance. You have access to park restrooms plus a dozen portable restrooms inside the parking lot.

The first section of trail is extremely rocky and eventually becomes bit flat, be very careful with those rocky surfaces, especially with the kids. As other have mentioned, right at mid of trail where you find bunch of trees, the trail splits into two possible routes. the left section takes you down towards the very rocky and steep area, Ravine falls in between, with a dead cow on the way (it is literally unbearable) and eventually to the Phantom falls. The right trail area is quite easy, not much rocky and avoids the dead-cow issue; I suggest you to take this section of the trail, both ways. You will find many streams on the way. Seeing lot of hikers along the way makes the journey bit easier and overall we liked it and even our little kids did it without an issue.

The water that feeds the Phantom falls is a tiny stream and the water almost never touches the ground due to the wind. The terrain is quite beautiful and you will see many variety of wildflowers along the way. For those who want to get to the bottom of the Phantom falls could do it by going around the right side of the falls and start descending on the left side using a rope that seems to have been...

It's a skinny waterfall, but it's always got a rainbow shining in the middle of it because of the spray from the wind, it'll bend left and right from the wind. The rock cliff the waterfall falls off of is an interesting formation.

There's a great viewpoint on the cliffs, but you can also take a steep path down with a rope tied to a tree at one part of the path.

There's a pool at the bottom, a giant vine you can swing on (don't know how long the vine will last, it's huge though), there's a man-made dug out cave underneath the waterfall and many people have left there carvings in the soft rock of the natural cave under the water fall.

The pool is also fairly private at the bottom because of the steep hike down and because it's shrouded by so many trees to block being in sight from people at the viewpoint. At the bottom the waterfall stream moves back and forth about 30 feet in distance, it's really cool. Reminds me of a grandfather clock.

I went on a Wednesday morning/afternoon in the spring, so it could possibly be busier and less private at the bottom on the weekends.

It's super rocky for most of the hike so I don't recommend flip flops at all.

Also during the spring there are beautiful flowers the whole hike...

It's still beautiful, but as some others have pointed out, it's not as rewarding anymore. With the new trails, getting there no longer feels like an adventure/achievement and seeing people along the route and at the falls completely ruins the vibe. It was common to encounter other people during the spring, but in the winter, you were much pretty much guaranteed the place to yourself. And even during the spring, the Little Phantom overlook would be deserted. Not anymore. I also have mixed feelings about the trail running to the base of Ravine Falls. On one hand, it's great that you can access the bottom, but at the same time there's nothing rewarding about reaching a spot that everyone can access now and not even being able to take it in, because you have to move so other hikers can take their picture.

This used to be my favorite hike/area, but it's probably my least favorite now.

I agree with what some others said. If you're coming from out of town for the first time, it's understandable that you wanna see this one. However, if you've already seen this one in the past, I would recommend visiting the south side instead, and just leaving this one to the Instagramers. Maybe it's less crowded during...