Let’s all give a big “Hooray!” for sunshine. We got a big ‘ol dose of it in the Willamette Valley today, so we ventured out for a hike. We drove about 1 1/2 hours to Silver Falls State Park. We’ve lived in Eugene for a year and a half, and somehow, we’d never heard of this place.
Let it be known: This park is awesome. We discovered this park when looking through an Oregon photo book (that’s been stashed under our coffee table for a year), searching for some travel inspiration. We found a picture of a pretty impressive waterfall, which led to the discovery that there’s a hike in this park called the Trail of Ten Falls. It’s an 8.7 mile hike with 10 waterfalls! Does it get much better than that?
A couple of tips if you try this hike yourself:
-It’s going to be much colder on the trail than it is everywhere else. It was about 45 degrees in the parking lot, but it was in the mid-30’s on the trail by the water. And those waterfalls give off quite a bit of mist, so it’s chilly.
-It costs $5 to get into the park, but it’s definitely worth it. (That’s only 50 cents per waterfall, folks. Less, if you have more than one person.)
-Pick up a trail map at the entrance to the park so you can ensure you’ll see all the waterfalls. Here’s a good map to let you know what’s up.
One of the super awesome things about this hike is that the trail goes behind three of the waterfalls! And that’s where things get pretty chilly and wet, but really interesting.
Honestly, I was expecting one or two big waterfalls, and then a bunch of really wimpy ones. But they were all pretty impressive, ranging from 27 feet to 177 feet. And the fact that you are looking for waterfalls the whole time makes for a very quick 8.7 mile hike.
Hooray for sunshine. Hooray for waterfalls. Hooray for Oregon.
-Ally
Leave a Reply