I have been up Ice House Road 4 times this year with Journey so far (and no more). We went to Bassi Falls of course but we had a couple other strikeouts that we won’t get into. One last time to one I know we can do: South Fork Silver Creek Falls. I went to this one last year without Journey but since she had not been to it yet I thought we should try it.
The snow is all gone so it is easy to drive right to the trailhead. It is only a half mile hike. That is not enough for the little doggie. Not even close. I parked the car two miles from the trailhead so we would have a five mile round trip hike. This was all good but it is a paved road and there could be cars. I had to be careful if Journey was going to be off-leash. On the hike in to the falls it was no problem, we are early birds (well, daddy is an early bird anyway). There would not be anyone out yet but on the way back there certainly could be cars (and there was one). Fortunately it is possible to walk on the beach alongside the lake for a lot of the distance so that is what we did on the hike back to the car. It was very pleasant and fun for Journey as well.
I was just here last year but getting up to the waterfall was a lot trickier for Journey than I thought it would be. There were a couple spots I had to lift her up and over big rocks or logs. Getting up to the high (better) waterfall viewpoint was not possible for her. There was a very big rock to climb up and even trying to lift her was not going to happen. The main (lower) viewpoint was far too misty to take photographs. I found another possible path up to the higher viewpoint and although a bit sketchy it was do-able for Journey. She did an awesome job getting up there and then laid down while I went up a bit higher to take photos. I even found a different composition of the waterfall that I did not get previously. It was golden. After photos she ate her entire bag of beef sticks, then we carefully went back down. It was worse going down but she did awesome again. It was a fantastic morning in Eldorado National Forest.
