Cascade Falls Trail is a 2 mile lightly trafficked loop trail located near Bergland, Michigan that features a waterfall and is rated as moderate. The trail is primarily used for hiking and trail running and is best used from May until November. Dogs are also able to use this trail but must be kept on leash.
Lovely easy little trail. Signage is only marked in KM not MI, so it may just be that this is a 2KM not MI trail. Good condition, light snow covering, light use and only saw a hunter along the road. Some ice, you may want a pole or spikes if there isn’t much snow covering. Bluff route wasn’t hard, but views weren’t great. Still recommend it for trail diversity. Falls are medium-sized but beautiful. Ice formations creating ice discs that look like pancakes. Would recommend, road was in fantastic condition, easily possible in a Prius or a Miata unless more snow falls. Last reviewer is dramatic, hopefully he doesn’t come back and ruin it for everyone with his complaining.
Very puzzled by the 4 and 5 star reviews. Hiked this trail last week along with 9 others in the area. Waterfall is very week compared to others in the area and you have to drive 5+ miles on narrow rough unpaved roads to get there. Don’t waste your time here but head to Bond and Agate which are not much farther away and don’t miss the Presque Isle River waterfalls area
Very peaceful until the falls, which had a youth group hanging out, falls were beautiful. Tiny bit buggy and wet but no big deal
As Tony mentioned, the trailhead is down a long dusty road. When we parked our large SUV, flies swarmed us and we were a little concerned about the hike. However, push through because only the first few steps of the trail are overgrown and buggy. We took the bluff trail on the way there (if you plan on doing the bluff trail this is the better direction to do it in due to slippery rocks and elevation) and the regular trail on the way back to complete the loop. Pristine calming waterfall in the woods, we were the only ones there. We did this hike a day after a big rainstorm so the falls were flowing rapidly. Highly recommend but bring bug spray and hiking boots because some places are muddy.
This is a nice moderate trail which is a bit of a haul on some dusty roads to get to. Great view of a nice clear waterfall which is accessible. Trail is well maintained, but not a crushed stone or anything easy like that. Just putting this in here for newer folks. Also no facilities.
Pretty decent trail for a National Forest. Slightly improved but could use more improvements. I’d start with the bluff trail. The beginning is fine going up but would be hard coming down. Decent waterfall. Check for tics. Found a few on my dog and we did not go off trail.
Pros: This is a beautiful trail with a tremendous view over the forest (up from the bluff). The waterfall was small but peaceful. Cons: the mosquitoes in mid-May were RELENTLESS. The trail is very muddy near the beginning and there’s a good amount of still water near the falls. Overall, bring tons of bug spray and long sleeve clothing.
Beautiful hike on the Bluff Trail to the Cascade Falls once you've completed the loop or you can hike straight to the falls by avoiding the Bluff Trail. The trail head is about 7 miles north off the main road down Forest Service Road 222 with the trail head about 1/4 mile north of the one lane bridge. Small parking area but roads are all good to there. The Bluff Trail is rocky and steep the first couple hundred yards up the escarpment with a few lookouts over the river valley and surrounding ridge lines. I'd highly recommend doing the loop as it really adds to the experience if you can make it up the rocky trail to the top. The Cascade Falls are really beautiful and worth spending 30 minutes looking at the different angles.
Took our 16 and 14 yo on the hike. Totally worth taking the bluff option.
Thankfully the moderator allowed the trail to be put in the proper location so I'm redoing my review of this trail. The road to the trail-head is well marked on Forest Road 400. The trail itself seems to be moderately used going to the waterfall, but along the way we noticed that there was a faded sign pointing up the hill to an upper loop. This is really easy to miss because the trail looks like it gets very light use. I recommend going up instead of just going out to the waterfall if you love to hike, see great views, and enjoy the forest. On the upper trail there are several lookouts over the valleys around the hill that are really beautiful. My wife and I would have loved to be up there during fall colors, or a sunset. The forest is really beautiful also. Lots of diversity, lots of rotting trees on the ground that have many kinds of mushrooms and moss growing on them. It is a bit strenuous to get up there though, but well worth it. The waterfall was good but not as impressive as the photos I had seen. I think if we were there during higher water on the river it would be better. There were some mosquitoes at the waterfall due to standing water, but we encountered none on the upper trail. But the hike to the waterfall was absolutely beautiful, so it made it all worth it. I'm hesitant to recommend the trail because of the natural beauty of it and more traffic will ruin some of that beauty, but I also want others to enjoy the experience we did also. Thankfully you won't need to spend an hour searching for it like we did :)