Well, it’s Memorial Day Weekend…the ‘start’ of summer, and we needed something to do since we cancelled our Painted Hills trip. Imelda, Harry, and Susan were still free this weekend, so we decided that some day hiking around Silver Falls would be fun!
So Sunday morning, we woke up early, picked the 3 of them up from Remy’s and then made our way out to Silver Falls…engaging them with our road trip routine of listening to a Casefile podcast along the way. We arrived at the Winter Falls trailhead at around 10, to start our 5 Falls tour (plus 1). Our plan was to start with this, and then see how we felt afterwards about doing some other shorter hikes – instead of doing the longer, more popular Trail of Ten Falls. Reading up on some things, it looked like we could piece together some other hikes and get more ‘bang for our buck’ (more falls with less walking)
The Five Falls tour was great…because it was only 2.6 miles out and back…so we got to see a new waterfall after just several minutes of walking. So as you’d expect, the first fall came upon us very quickly, Winter Falls. It was a nice one to start our walk off with.
Next up was Middle North Falls, which was the highlight of this tour, since we could walk behind the falls. We spent a little more time at this one since there was a section where we could scramble down some mud to get a better head-on view of the falls.
Next up was Drake Falls…nothing special here, and there wasn’t a great viewpoint to see it from either.
Lower North Falls was pretty neat, and another one where you could carefully make your way down to get a closer view of the falls. Norina, Susan, and I decided to check it out, to see the nice wide falls from it’s ground level.
The last waterfall, Double Falls was a nice one as well, and is actually the tallest falls in the park. This one took a little balancing act on a log and some rock jumping to get a nice head on view of, but nothing we couldn’t handle!
On our way back to the Winter Falls trailhead, we decided to take a small detour of a little over a half-mile to check out a 6th fall, Twin Falls. It really wasn’t worth it, as you couldn’t really get a nice view of the falls.
After we got back to the car, it was time to have some lunch! So we drove over to the main area of the park and found a nice table by a creek to set up our lunch. The night before, Norina and I picked up some marked down subs from Walmart and fried chicken from Fred Meyer. We reheated the fried chicken in our portable grill, which wound up tasting great that way! Along with some other snacks, it was a great lunch!
After our bellies were nice and full, we decided to take a walk over to South Falls, probably the most popular falls in the entire park, as it’s right near the day use area. It’s a really pretty waterfall, especially with the backdrop, and another one where you can walk behind…so makes sense why they would build the park around this one.
From here, we decided to continue on the trail to see one more waterfall before calling it a day. This one took us a little under a mile to get to, and I would say was worth the walk. The Lower South Falls was yet another one in which you could walk behind, and had some nice tiers formed from the rocks in front of it.
After this, I think we were good on waterfalls for the day, so turned back up to South Falls, and back to the day use area where our car was parked. Definitely a good day of walking and waterfall seeing!
But wait…our day wasn’t over yet! How could we make a trip down this way without stopping by the Woodburn Outlets? So we spent some time here to check out the Nike and Converse outlets, had some dinner, and then got to see a nice big rainbow just as the shops were closing and we started to make our way back! Overall…a great day filled with some great company, views, walks and food!
The Dating Life of Norina and Jonathan 