Updated 12/07/2022
“So do you want to go to the Green River Gorge swimming hole?” my brother asked the family at large. “It has a hiking trail also,” he added quickly. “And a ghost town.”
We were all arrayed around the cozy living room, debating the next day’s adventure.
While I loved swimming in lakes and rivers as a kid, these days I generally prefer to wade or put my toes in the water…particularly if (as often seems to be the case) the swimming place is a river of freezing snowmelt.
Yet the Green River Gorge swimming hole is a great fit for our family because it combines a top swimming destination with an intriguing ghost town to explore just down the trail.
In today’s post, I’ll share the highlights of the Green River Gorge swimming hole and the fascinating and tragic history of the neighboring Franklin, Washington Ghost Town. I’ll also go over everything you need to know about parking and finding both destinations.
Parking for the Green River Gorge Swimming Hole and Franklin, Washington Ghost Town
The Green River Gorge swimming hole and the Franklin, Washington ghost town can be accessed from the same parking area. It’s about an hour southeast of Seattle, in Black Diamond, Washington. To get there, navigate to Franklin Ghost Town on Google Maps.
Parking is a little confusing, since there are two options. I’d recommend parking at the Franklin Ghost Town trailhead, which has a $5 parking fee. The other option is to park at the Green River Resort just down the road. This allows you to take a trail down to a waterfall, but it’s $5 per person instead of per vehicle.
Aside from the difference in cost, a key consideration in choosing your parking is that the two parking areas are on different sides of the Green River. If you park at the Green River Resort, your group won’t be able to explore Franklin Ghost Town without swimming across the river or walking down the main road. If your group has a mix of swimmers and non-swimmers (as ours did), this is a suboptimal outcome.
If you instead park in the Franklin Ghost Town lot, you’ll be able to walk to the Franklin Ghost Town and also down to the river near the swimming hole. Swimmers in your group can then swim across the river if they want to jump from the cliffs, which are on the other side. Cliff-jumping can be dangerous, and there have been injuries and rescues at this location. I personally wouldn’t risk it, but then, I’ve already said I’m more likely to just dip my toes in the river.
How to Find the Franklin, Washington Ghost Town
After parking, we set out to find the Franklin, Washington Ghost Town first. To find it from the Franklin Ghost Town parking lot, look for the vehicle gate at the opposite side of the parking lot from the road. A well-maintained path heads from the gate through the blackberries to the ghost town. There’s a plaque on the left just past the trail entrance that tells a bit about the Franklin Ghost Town history. I’ll share more about that in the next section.
The town itself has largely been reclaimed by nature, and primarily by massive swaths of Himalayan blackberries. We visited on Labor Day weekend, and the blackberries were ripe, so we ate our fill of blackberries while exploring. You can still discern a few foundations among the blackberries, but mostly the buildings have been lost to time.
Visible remnants include a train car originally used to transport coal (it was a coal-mining town), the entrance to one of the mine shafts, and headstones in an overgrown graveyard.
These remains are fairly spread out from one another, but signs indicate where to find each area.
Franklin, Washington Ghost Town History
Franklin, Washington was a coal-mining town that was founded in the late 1800s. Its heyday was short-lived, from 1885 – 1919. Black Diamond History is a great resource for historical photographs and details about Franklin in its prime.
Per KUOW, a set of disasters sped Franklin on its way to becoming a ghost town. In the largest single disaster, 37 people (including a child) died in a mine fire in 1894. Nevertheless, mining operations continued for more than 20 years. Eventually a depleting coal resource and falling coal prices after World War I caused the mining operations in Franklin to close.
David Wilma shares a more complete account of the mine fire in this HistoryLink article. There was speculation at the time that the fire in the mine had been set on purpose by one of the miners who died. The problem was exacerbated by a different miner, who shut off an air supply fan, and yet another opened a door that inadvertently worsened the smoke exposure. The miners were smothered when the fire depleted the oxygen from the space. Many of them were buried at Franklin, likely in the town graveyard that’s overgrown but still visible today.
Green River Gorge Swimming Hole
The Green River Gorge swimming hole itself is nestled in a lush forest canyon. The trail to access the swimming hole is right off the same parking lot that’s used for the Franklin, Washington Ghost Town. The trail begins at the somewhat sketchy-looking gate in the photo below.
It’s pretty steep in places, including right off the bat from the parking lot, so take care if anyone in your group has a knee injury. Hiking poles may be helpful if you have them.
The forest on this side isn’t covered in blackberries, and instead you’ll find quintessential Pacific Northwest moss-covered trees. The trail is short, and leads down into the canyon.
A viewpoint provides a clear view of a beautiful waterfall on the other side of the river. You can also see a series of wooden steps on top of the waterfall itself. That’s the walking route if you park at the other parking area, the Green River Resort, so you’ll likely see people on that side of the river.
There’s some really cool geology that creates pothole formations in the river rock that are easily visible from above.
Another steep section leads down to a rocky “beach” at the river’s edge. This is a popular local swimming hole, so you’ll likely find others here in the summer. Take care here, and swim at your own risk. The river is very high, cold, and fast many times of year, so swimming is only a fit in late summer.
Other Adventures in the Pacific Northwest
Thanks for joining us at the Green River Gorge swimming hole and Franklin, Washington Ghost Town! For more travel ideas in the Pacific Northwest, check out our PNW Trip Planner. You can find adventures near you and filter by season and difficulty level. There are weird and wonderful things to explore any time of year. The trip planner links to blog posts to help you plan your next adventure.
Happy exploring!
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