Dutch Creek Trail

We enjoyed exploring the powerful waterfalls and roaring rivers of Coloma, CA!We did the Dutch Falls HikeLength: 2.5 milesType: Out and backLevel: ModerateElevation gain: 272 ftBe sure to bring hiking poles, hiking shoes and get ready to get a little muddy (worth it, I promise!)

This trail is pretty well reviewed on Alltrails and Google but I could not find it on Yelp. As is typical, reviews on other sites can be short and quite limited so from what I read I was excited to try this trail. It is lovely right now, but you can tell it is on the precipice of drying up for the year and turning brown and dusty. Speaking of precipices, there were many areas where the path was unstable of the cliff face had collapsed. The trail was just not well maintained and there were tons of bugs, especially mosquitos due to the sitting pools of water and long grass. Even being coated in bug spray, I found dead bugs in my shirt when I came home and my hiking partner had bugs go in his mouth and eye. We saw poison oak and although I checked my dog thoroughly for ticks after the hike and found none, she is good at staying on the trail so I would be cautious with wandering pups. Overall, the trail is moderate and if maintained would be spectacular. However, the blatant disregard for the trail is a solid reason to take away a star. The other reason is that there is no parking in the area, with the exception of the museum parking lot and we paid $10 to park over a half mile away from the trailhead on a hike that will take you an hour max. Still, while this trail was disenchating, we did drive past a few other parks and trailheads in the area with free parking that we were previously unaware of and will most likely be back another day to try those.