Madison Falls is the most accessible stop in Olympic National Park: a paved, wheelchair-friendly path of about a hundred yards leads to a roughly fifty-foot cascade off a basalt face near the Elwha River. Benches and an accessible restroom sit at the trailhead. Note that this parking area is the vehicle terminus. The road up the Elwha Valley toward the former dam sites washed out and remains closed to cars; it is open to foot and bicycle traffic only. Allow about ten minutes round trip for the falls.
Here's the end of the road — literally. The pavement just stops, and beyond that gate the Elwha River keeps going without you. Step out and stretch your legs, because this is one stop where everyone in the car can come, no exceptions. A short paved path, only about a hundred yards, flat and smooth and wheelchair-friendly, leads you to Madison Falls: a fifty-foot ribbon of Madison Creek fanning down a mossy basalt face just above the river. There are benches if you want to sit, a restroom at the trailhead, and the easiest payoff in the whole park. Watch your step on a few spots where roots have lifted the pavement, and you're at the falls in about five minutes each way. Now, about that gate. This lot is as far as cars go, and it's worth knowing why. Years back the dams came down, and the Elwha came roaring back to life, free for the first time in a century. A free river is a powerful thing. It chewed away the road into the upper valley and it never gave that road back, so the old country up there — the high reaches, the old dam overlook — is foot-and-bike country now, miles up a road the river took for itself. There's a kind of justice in that, if you ask me. A river that had its whole valley taken from it took a stretch of road in return, and kept it. Listen to it down there past the falls — that low steady roar through the trees. That sound is the Elwha running the way it ran for thousands of years before anyone built a wall across it, and the way it runs again today. There's a tale in that water that belongs to the people of this river. Stay where you are a moment, and Ranger Boone has it for you.
Photo: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS - Pacific Region) · Public Domain
The Elwha River is the site of the largest dam-removal and river-restoration project in US history. Between 2011 and 2014, the National Park Service took down the Elwha Dam and the larger Glines Canyon Dam, reopening more than 70 miles of river and tributaries to salmon and steelhead for the first time in a century. The river now runs free from the Olympic Mountains to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, rebuilding beaches and gravel beds and drawing returning fish runs.
Madison Falls is the easy, accessible highlight at the valley's entrance: a short paved path leads to a mossy cascade tucked in the forest near the Elwha's banks. It is the de facto end of the road for drivers, since the Olympic Hot Springs Road beyond the Madison Falls parking area has been washed out and closed to vehicles by the restored, dynamic river. Cyclists and hikers can continue up the valley past the closure point.
- • Road status: the Olympic Hot Springs Road is closed indefinitely to vehicles beyond the Madison Falls parking area due to repeated flood washouts; check current conditions before you go.
- • Access beyond: the road past Madison Falls is open only to hikers and cyclists, who can ride or walk in to reach upper Elwha trailheads.
- • Madison Falls: a very short, flat, paved trail (about 0.2 miles round trip) just off the parking area, suitable for wheelchairs and strollers.
- • Fees: the $30 per vehicle 7-day Olympic National Park pass applies; getting there is about a 10-15 minute drive west of Port Angeles off US-101.
- • Pets: Madison Falls is one of the few spots in the park where leashed dogs are allowed, thanks to its short paved trail.