Brandywine Falls: Best Views and Hiking Tips

The Brandywine Gorge Loop includes the boardwalks for the Upper and Lower Brandywine falls viewing platforms. When researching the park for our trip, I knew right away I wanted to see the iconic Brandywine Falls and this loop trail seemed to be the right choice. The trail had some great features and provided those awesome views of the falls that I was looking for.

Let’s start with some of the statistics of the trail. There is the option to do an out and back of the trail using just the boardwalks and platforms to view the falls. If you choose this option, it will eliminate the most difficult parts of the loop and provide a short half mile hike with a pretty great view. Given my continuous craving for adventure and exploring, we opted to do the whole loop. which came out to be 1.86 miles with about 391 feet of elevation gain.

In the direction we chose, we saw the falls first. There is an upper platform and a lower platform for viewing the falls. This picture and most pictures you will see in research is taken from the lower platform which provides a whole view of Brandywine Falls. The benefit of the upper platform is less crowds and a closer look at the point where the water goes over the edge.

If you choose to do the entire loop, it will provide you with a mostly shaded and forested trail that is clearly marked and easily followed. It provides some different vantage points of the Brandywine as well as this cool bridge crossings. It will also provide you with a reasonably challenging uphill experience at the end. That being said, the steepest part does have erosion stairs to assist in the ascent.