Matthiessen State Park

We went to Matthiessen State Park….last year in August. Just a pinch late with the post. Eh, life gets in the way sometimes.

Anyway, what a gorgeous place it is. The only disappointment was that we went partially to play in the waterfall like we heard was such a highlight. Apparently when we went, there hadn’t been enough rain recently, so there was no waterfall. Guess we’ll have to go back sometime.

The trails are so nice and wide and well kept. Which I love. She’s just off the trail in this picture. Which I don’t think you are supposed to do, but sometimes we live on the edge like that.

We only covered part of the area. We’ll have to go back another day for the rest, and to maybe catch that waterfall. Jamie isn’t exactly a walker or a climber, as we are. But considering we didn’t know what to expect, he kept up pretty well.

So many cool spots to explore. Would also be a great place for family pictures.

This is all right up Ashlyn’s alley. Exploring, rocks, climbing, getting dirty….ain’t nothin better.

This was a very cool spot and if I could get family to climb up there, would be a great family photo spot.

I think Ashlyn could live here there’s so many neat areas.

Good thing is that it’s a fairly large area, so people can be spread out and it still doesn’t feel crowded.

The water that’s sitting at the bottom is on the dirty side, but that never seemed to bother one of us.

We did have an incident happen that could have ended pretty bad. At the very top of the rock, into the tree’s, you can see small parts of railing here and there.

In this one too, you can see the railing up there. That’s where the walk path is. There was a church group there, I won’t mention the name, but they were junior high age. When they were leaving, at the top on the walk path, they thought it was be “funny” to throw large rocks off that cliff down to the people below. People screamed and scattered yelling up there, but the person in charge of them didn’t hear. Someone did attempt to call and find out who this group was exactly. Some rocks came extremely close to a lady and her daughter. Any fallen rock was too close to any of these people really. Looking around afterwards, some of these rocks were 4″-6″ wide. I don’t want to think about what that would do to your head after about a 300′ drop. Clearly these kids didn’t realize the severity of their actions. We never found out, but we hope the culprits were caught and some sort of disciplinary action was taken.

On to more fun things. This is where the water usually falls. This area of rock is so shiny and smooth as you can see. The kids (and adults) slide down this in to the water. Ashlyn had a blast doing this. Ruined a pair of shorts, but was worth the fun.

You do have to be careful over there, it is slick in spots. At least worst case if you lose your footing, you slide down in to the water with a few scrapes. After the church group of kids left, Ashlyn and I were the only ones left to slide. Kind of nice to have it to yourself.

Not sure what this rock was about, but was cool.

We look teeny tiny, but we are up there on that bridge.

Taking a break on the bridge before heading back out to the trails.

We stopped here for a break too, to show Ashlyn where some of those rocks came tumbling down from. Basically explained to her how those kids ‘joke’ could have cost someone their life.

Not sure what this log cabin thing was about either, but it was neat to check out.

Hopefully we are able to go back when we’ve had more rain. And when we have more time to check out the other part of this area. I need to ask around and find out how safe these trails are if Ashlyn and I went back ourselves. Hey, if you’re local and up for some walking, we want to go back this next summer !!!