We recently took a long weekend camping trip to Steamboat Springs, Colorado to celebrate my husband’s birthday. He has lived in Colorado his entire life but had never been to Steamboat so it was awesome to celebrate him while exploring somewhere he had never been before.
While we were camping, we decided to check out Fish Creek Falls - a well known hike and waterfall in Steamboat. There are small posted signs everywhere in town as to where the Falls are located vs where you you are standing and what direction you need to travel to get to them. Seeing all these signs made us feel like we had to check them out. And they did not disappoint!
Parking
There is a $5 fee to enter the parking lot. We were told if we had an America the Beautiful pass that the parking fee would be waved.
There are limited parking spots so on busy weekends they could fill up rather quickly.
Vault toilets were also in the parking lot, which is nice to see!
The hike
Awesome thing about this hike - there is a short hike and a long hike. Each of which are fantastic depending on what your overall desire and conditioning are.
The Short Hike - Fish Creek Falls
This hike is roughly a half-mile (0.5 mile) round trip. You start the hike going downhill and lose a lot of elevation very quickly. This is key to note as that means that your way out is going to be a pretty steep uphill hike.
You’ll know it when you get to the end of the short hike - you’ll have the most stunning view of the Falls.
The Long Hike - Long Lake
We didn’t make it all the way on the long hike. To be honest, we didn’t come prepared to go more than a few miles - I was in denim shorts and didn’t bring my hiker bag, just a small sling back that had more things in it for our doggo than it did for me. Definitely not enough water to make it on the longer hike.
But the section we did of it was beautiful and a steep grind.
You start out on the Short Hike and then proceed past the bridge and up you go, up the side of the mountain.
Apparently when you get to the top, you have an eye level view of the Falls that is supposed to be stunning. We will definitely be doing this the next time we are in Steamboat!
Extra fun to be had
We hit the trail to the Falls on one of the hottest days of the year, so it should not have come to as big of a surprise as it did to find a ton of families at the river with their kids in swimming suits playing in the water.
The water was nice and cool - perfect for a scorching hot day in the mountains! We let Max, or doggo, play in the water for a while when we were on our way back to our car. He loved it!
Final thoughts
This hike is fantastic. I loved the option to do just the shorter hike to the viewing point as we didn’t come totally prepared for a longer hike. I also love that we could have continued on if we had come prepared to do so.
The fact that playing in the water was such a common thing made me smile and I know Max had the best time romping around in it.
It is an absolute must-do when you are in the Steamboat area.
