Silver Falls State Park – Riveted

Christmas Trees in the Summertime

Laura Domela — Mon, 23 Jun 2014 21:15:14 +0000

I snapped this out of the car window on our way from Silver Falls State Park today. There were so many fields like this where the tree farm landscape looked like it was being flooded with yellow wildflowers…it felt like you could SEE them growing up and around the Christmas tree bases. So pretty!

Silver Falls State Park, Spot 10

Laura Domela — Mon, 23 Jun 2014 12:56:38 +0000

Our short visit here at Silver Falls State Park has been so nice! We'll be working right here this morning until we check out and head home for a few days. We've got 4 bars of strong AT&T, and no Verizon, for those of you curious about that. The closest place to get reliable Verizon seems to be back near the town of Silverton (14 miles or so from here).

Last night we had another campfire and visited with the Hardersens over at their campsite (where we were most definitely loud past 10pm…ooops). Dinner was zucchini cooked on the Traeger and caprese panini (and Prosecco with no Aperol).

“Bike Trail” at Silver Falls State Park

Laura Domela — Mon, 23 Jun 2014 01:14:32 +0000

Okay so when we were on our way through Silverton, we stopped at a liquor store to pick up some Aperol for making some spritzes at the campground. (They didn't even know what Aperol was, so it was a bust, but anyway.) The liquor store was next door to a market and there was a sign up on the street signage for what I assume was the bakery in the market, advertising donuts, and it said:

"Voted" Best Donut

Do the quotation marks mean that it wasn't really a "vote"? Did only the person making the sign "vote"? Was it "voted" for by the employees of the bakery? What does it meeeeaaaannnnn???

This afternoon we decided to take a break from reading books and watching the World Cup to go check out the "bike trail" at Silver Falls State Park. It was very pretty, a short 5.5 mile loop from the campground, but not at all a nice path for bikes, unless you like a lot of debris, total pine needle coverage, and TONS of cracks and bumps and short steep hills. (Could be okay for mountain biking, but it's paved, so not really. Also: lots of pedestrians.)

Super pretty though. I was able to click off a photo during one of the several smoothish bits where I didn't need both hands:

On the way back, there's a spot where the "bike trail" crosses the road, so we opted to take the road back to the campground instead of the rest of the "bike trail". It was a very good choice!! At first it was a short steady uphill in a low gear, but then the whole rest of the way was wheeeeeee…..downhill, smooth road, nice curves, and no traffic. Perfect!

Route/elevation from the campground:

Silver Falls State Park

Laura Domela — Sun, 22 Jun 2014 16:15:03 +0000

Yesterday we said goodbye to Aluminarium over at Stub Stewart and headed to Silver Falls State Park for two nights, where we met up with more Airstream friends: the Hardersen family (Pete, Kathy, their son, his girlfriend, and two family friends).

This is exactly what it's like here:

Last night's fire:

We arrived yesterday afternoon, set up camp, put together some jalapeno poppers (jalapenos, cheddar and cream cheese with chorizo, wrapped with bacon) and stuck 'em on the Traeger to smoke for about an hour and half, then finished 'em at a higher temp. We took those (on the back of Kevin's bike) plus some smoked shrimp and avocado dip over to the Hardersen campsite and had a nice dinner and campfire (plus a round of Cards Against Humanity) with them and their friends — lots and lots of laughing!!

Bad low-light photo, but look how nicely the Falcon enamelware fits on the bike rack:

This morning we got up and met Kathy & Pete's son Justin and his girlfriend Hannah for a hike out to see some waterfalls.

Sunlight behind the trees:

South Falls:

Back at camp Kathy made a gorgeous breakfast for everyone (french toast, sausage, yogurt, fresh fruit, juice, coffee) … all so delicious!

While we were all sitting outside, a little hummingbird flew into their Airstream and got stuck up in the skylight trying to escape. I took a quick picture before Pete went in and rescued him:

It's been such a fun weekend already! We're moving into another spot for tonight and we'll probably do a bike ride this afternoon, and have some more food and laughing tonight around a campfire. Happy Summer everyone!

Oh alright, one more post about waterfalls

Laura Domela — Mon, 17 Feb 2014 19:12:10 +0000

It rained and rained and rained all night, and this morning as we started our Monday workday in the Airstream, surprise! It was raining. We'd talked about doing a slightly abbreviated version of yesterday's hike today if there was a break in the weather, but we decided we still wanted to do it regardless of the weather. We got some work done first and then suited up and headed out. Today, we hiked the "Trail of Eight Falls" — leaving out Twin Falls and North Falls.

Here's South Falls from down near the bottom:

The wind was rippin through the canyon this morning so we got way more soaked on the part of the trail that goes behind the waterfall than we did yesterday, counting all the rain.

Hey look! For just a minute, in the middle of our hike (it did not last):

We started at South Falls and made our way around the big loop, cutting across on the trail up to Winter Falls (which we'd only really seen/heard from the top, before the water actually falls). It's pretty nice from the bottom:

Today's hike was about 7 miles and now we're back at work, listening to the sound of the rain on the aluminum. I made us a killer omelette for breakfast (breakfast at 1:30pm, that is) — sauteed kale, baby shiitake mushrooms, cheddar, and a little bacon, topped with salsa. Notice how the food you eat after a long wet hike is usually quite a bit tastier than it normally is?

Map of yesterday's hike (~11 miles):

Map of today's hike (~7 miles):

I don't remember what the trail says the elevation gain is, but Fitbit says yesterday's hike was equivalent to approximately 102 floors and today's was 73.

Hiking the Trail of Ten Falls

Laura Domela — Sun, 16 Feb 2014 20:46:38 +0000

This morning we woke up to a tiny bit of sun and blue sky (!!!!). We decided it WAS the day to do the Trail of Ten Falls hike after all. Just as we were dressed, breakfasted, hand-on-the-door-handle ready to go…guess what? It started raining. Oh well. Onward! What's a 10 mile hike in the rain? We have Gore-Tex, and all weather trail shoes, and resolve.

We walked from the campground up to South Falls and started there. (Warning: this post is going to have several photos of waterfalls.)

Behind South Falls:

I took a photo of each of the ten waterfalls, but I'll only post the most interesting ones. We saw all ten, plus a few that probably don't count. I don't think this one counts or has a name, but it's pretty isn't it?

I love when the trail goes behind several of the waterfalls…usually a narrow rocky path with a low ceiling (and tons of spray from the falls…but no worse than the rain, really):

In the photo below you can see the trail coming out from under the falls on the right side of the image. Gives you an idea of the scale, doesn't it?

You can tell by the color temp of the photos how dark and kinda dreary the weather was. Regardless, it was still lovely.

Starting at South Falls you descend down into the canyon to the aptly named Canyon Trail. This trail follows alongside the river past Lower South Falls, Lower North Falls, Double Falls, Drake Falls, Middle North Falls, Twin Falls, ending up at North Falls. It's a gorgeous, very satisfyingly scenic hike, even in the rain:

Double Falls:

Approaching North Falls:

Behind North Falls:

Then you head up to the top of North Falls where there's an out-and-back (.2 miles out, .2 back) to see Waterfall No. 10: Upper North Falls.

Upper North Falls:

Then you hook up with the Rim Trail that takes you back along the other side of the canyon, up high, past Winter Falls, and eventually back to the campground. All in all we hiked about 11 miles, but the trail itself–if you parked at a trailhead and wanted to see all 10 waterfalls–is just under 9 miles I believe.

The Rim Trail headed back to our campground:

Silver Falls State Park is Oregon's largest state park. It's about 9000 acres of temperate rain forest and there are many other trails besides the Trail of Ten Falls (but that one is definitely one of the most popular hikes!).

Now we're warming up in the Airstream, and we'll probably watch some more House of Cards pretty soon. Kevin's going to cook some chicken on the Traeger for dinner tonight, and I'll roast some asparagus and make an arugula salad as our sides. I'm so happy we got that hike in today! (It offsets some of those stuffed jalapeños and burgers we had last night for dinner!)

South Falls, Silver Falls State Park

Laura Domela — Sat, 15 Feb 2014 16:01:59 +0000

Yesterday (during the only, very short break in the rain) we hiked from our campsite over to South Falls. Still beautiful.

We went into town (Silverton) last night and had a little Valentine's Day dinner at the Silver Grille. It was quite nice. They did a several course prix fixe menu and it was all good. Early reservations (6pm) and then we came back to the Airstream and watched three episodes of House of Cards (the finale from last season, to refresh, and the first two episodes of Season Two). Whoa!!

Hope you all had a nice Valentine's Day! We're looking at a bunch more rain and maybe some snow here over the weekend, so we'll probably do a bit more rainy waterfall exploring and some House of Cards watching. I've got baked eggs in the oven right now for breakfast (with baby shitakes, kale, chipotle cheddar, and sausage), and the espresso machine is working. Happy Saturday morning everyone!

Look Up!

Laura Domela — Fri, 14 Feb 2014 00:11:19 +0000

We're at Silver Falls State Park this week (working, hiking, etc.) and late this afternoon we hiked from our campsite up to Winter Falls and back (about 5 miles). The thing about this particular hike is that (1) we mainly took the bike path (along with a bit of the Rim Trail) because we wanted to know how the bike path was, for when we come back WITH OUR NEW BIKES! (it was not super well-maintained, covered in debris and branches from last week's storm), and (2) we never did really SEE the falls because where we turned around and headed back was at the top of the falls, so we could see the water that was about to fall, and we could hear the falls, but not SEE the falls. But we'll get to the whole waterfall thing when we do the Trail of Ten Falls hike (maybe on Sunday).

Anyway, the path looked like this:

and this:

Lookit all that moss! You'd think we were in the South or somethin'!

We spent about 20 minutes chatting with the park host and learned that the snow up here a few days ago was CRAZY and that just yesterday most of the area was covered with 3-5 inches of water from the overflowing stream (the one right behind our campsite). Apparently the downed branches combined with the beavers building dams, messes up the flow just a bit. It's all fixed up now and we're on fairly dry ground (until the scheduled deluge begins tomorrow). Oh well, we're cozy inside, grilling some salmon on the Traeger, and tomorrow the second season of House of Cards

Next Stop: Silver Falls State Park

Laura Domela — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 18:10:39 +0000

Our next stop will be hiking the waterfalls at Silver Falls State Park. The last time we were there it looked like this:

It was actually quite lovely and we had fun cooking BBQ in the snow. I'm hoping for some hiking weather this time though, so we can do the longer (8.7 mile) Trail of Ten Falls hike.