Last week was apparently the week of rainforests. A few days after our return from Olympic National Park, we (Gary, Zach and I) decided to take a day hike at Silver Falls State Park, which turns out is classified as a rainforest, just like Olympic. Who knew?
Silver Falls is about an hour and a half drive from Portland, at the end of a tangle of winding backroads that led us through countryside that actually reminded me a lot of Missouri, just with more blueberry/marionberry stands. We pulled up at the South Falls trailhead late morning— it’s a $5 day use fee to park anywhere, and this trailhead has a cafe and bathrooms. We planned to piece together a loop called The Trail of Ten Falls, although it ended up being the Trail of Nine Falls because we skipped one of the spur trails. The loop was about seven miles long, which we hiked clockwise.
 |
| See the people for scale |
If you live in the Portland area, I can’t recommend this trail highly enough as a day trip. The forest is as gorgeous as you expect any Oregon forest to be, the waterfalls are beautiful and the volcanic rock formations— whether the black-rocked stream bottoms or the huge overhanging caverns— took my breath away. The trail is easy and has lots of shortcut loops, and offers both scenic views and behind-the-falls perspectives. Rainforests are cool!
~~~
No comments:
Post a Comment