Osprey Falls Trail

The first three miles lull you into complacency — a flat, wide service road through open meadows and ghostly burned forest where bison sometimes block the path. Then the real trail begins, and it wastes no time. You'll drop roughly 700 feet into Sheepeater Canyon on a series of steep, rocky switchbacks carved into the canyon wall, losing elevation fast enough that your knees will have opinions about it. The payoff is worth every step back up: Osprey Falls hammers 150 feet off the lip of an ancient lava flow into a misty amphitheater on the Gardner River, and you'll likely have it entirely to yourself. The canyon walls are sheer columns of basalt that look like a pipe organ built for giants. This trail rewards hikers who don't mind earning their waterfalls the hard way and who appreciate solitude over spectacle.