Day-Tripper, Nockamixon Waterfall Tour

One of our favorite day trips is a drive up route 611 to check out the waterfalls. There are 3 within a few miles of one another: High Creek Falls in Ringing Rocks Park, the falls on Rapp Creek near the state game land #56 and the falls at the spill-way of Lake Nockamixon. This a half day trip. Below we have the order of the tour we like to take but you may want to mix it up depending on which way you are travelling into the area. Of course, the best time to see each of the falls is after recent rainfall. We hope you like the tour.

High Creek Falls: The falls are located within Ringing Rocks Park. The trail back to the gorge is about 1/2 mile long. The slope down to the falls can be slippery and the area surrounding the falls is filled with boulders so extreme care needs to be taken when you are exploring the gorge. The drop is about 30 feet high and the water truly thunders off the drop into the valley below when at full force. There are picnic tables and a porto-potty at the parking area. The main attraction of the park is a boulder field of rocks that do indeed ring when you hit them with something hard. It would be easy to spend most of the Nockamixon Waterfall Tour at this park alone. See the Ringing Rocks Park post for a full review of the site.


Rapp Creek Falls: This waterfall is visible from Beaver Run Road http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=rapp%20creek&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wl You can't get to the falls to explore because they lie on private property, but there is a good view from the road for a quick stop and a photo. This photo is from the Scenic Bucks County website. http://scenicbuckscounty.com/Tinicum/RappCreek.html

Nockamixon Dam Spillway: The spill-way for the Lake Nockamixon Dam can be seen from State Park Road. There is a pull off on the dam side of the road. Be careful getting in and out of your car here. Cars go whizzing by at a good clip. The view of the spill way is most of what you are able to explore here. The park service has fenced off the entire area around the dam and has made it very clear that they don't want anyone getting too close to the dam and the spill-way. It is still worth driving by to check out. It is an impressive sight and if you're a little more adventurous you can follow the fence around to the left of the dam to get a closer look. You'll need to cross over a creek and head up a steep slope to get a view from above the falls. If you continue along the fence you will come to a parking area that is accessible from Mink Road and Interior Park Road. This area is located in the top-center of the photo above where the trees are. It provides a nice view of the lake and the dam breast. It is slightly more than a 1/4 mile hike from the parking pull off on State Park Road.

As we mentioned before, we like to do the tour in this order with the High Falls Creek Waterfall first so that we a fresh for the trek. If you are travelling with small children this is especially important because the afternoon tends to approach nap time and small hikers will get fatigued quickly. We hope you enjoy to the tour as much as we do. If there are more falls in this immediate area please let us know.

@home.outdoors

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