I have all the reference photo’s that I really needed for my upcoming waterfall watercolor class. But I recently heard about a hike in Girdwood that had a spectacular waterfall at the end, so naturally, I had to go see. The trail is called Chutes and Ladders.

The hike was listed as technically difficult, and there were definitely areas that I would classify as such. I probably would not take small children or people who are unstable on their feet down this hike. But, for anyone up for an adventure, it was a fun one! The Chutes and Ladders part of the trail is probably only a 1/2 mile, the trail getting there is less than 1 mile of easy walking.

The trail is hard to find, but I did find several helpful articles on the internet with directions that got us somewhat close to where we needed to be. We actually found the trial kind of by accident. One of my sons spotted the first rope going down into the gorge, as we were walking along the edge looking for the way in. Then we were off.

The forest down in Girdwood has a definite rainforest feel to it, and the day we were there it was very misty although not raining. The area we hiked reminded me a lot of the slot canyon’s from Southern Utah where I grew up, although instead of being dry, everything was moss covered and damp. This contributed to the technical difficulty as it was sometimes hard to find solid footing on the slick surfaces.

But the gorge was spectacular. I wished I could spend a couple of hours there with my painting setup and just paint and enjoy. My sons want to go again with friends and said I could come along. I don’t know how I will pick just one spot to paint, but if I hurried maybe I could get in a couple of paintings in while they were exploring.

There was also a small stream that ran through the whole area, so the bottom of our shoes were constantly wet adding to the slick rock surfaces, we (I) had to navigate more slowly just to minimize slipping. There was one rickety old wooden ladder getting down a larger drop, but the rest of the areas had ropes to assist in areas that were steeper or known to be slick.

The whole area was so beautiful with the tall narrow cliffs on either side, and the small stream running down through everything. There were a number of small caves the boys explored along the way. I get claustrophobic just looking in them, but they had fun.

The finale of the whole hike was the waterfall at the end. It felt massive, and the roar of the water coming over the edge was so loud you couldn’t hear each other if you were very far apart. It was in a small canyon, so the water fell and churned against the facing rock cliff and then turned and continued on down the river. The sides near the waterfall consisted of some loose rock down the steep sides and some larger, very wet rocks nearer the bottom.

My mom brain had a lot of anxiety as I watched my boys climb around near the waterfall. One slip and it would be very difficult to survive the churning water and rocks at the bottom. But, they are rock climbers, and are confident in their abilities and were aware of the wet conditions. I am confident in my older son’s caution and his comments to my younger son to pay attention and be careful. They stayed together and were safe. I would have a hard time being that close to that much water with younger kids, or kids I didn’t know who may not listen to myself or my boys cautions.

Hiking out was just as beautiful. We ended up turning the wrong way down the trail when we connected to the main trail again, and ended up walking down to the hand tram building. It was only about 1/2 mile from where we hit the main trail however, so it was a nice side adventure. We explored the area and then headed back to the car.

The final stop we made was at the bakery on our way out. Well, I had to stop at the bakery to get some baklava, and the boys got subway. We weren’t sure if driving 2 hours south to go on a 2 mile hike was going to be worth it, but we all agreed on the way home that it had been more than worth it.