A Trail of Waterfalls

On Monday we drove 17 miles to Silver Falls State Park.  We were looking forward to hiking the Trail of Ten Falls.  It's a popular hike in Oregon where you can make an 8.2 mile loop to view ten waterfalls.  We opted to take the shorter 6.1 mile loop to see seven waterfalls.

It was a beautiful, sunny day with a forecasted high of 82.  We had no trouble finding a parking place, the beauty of going places on a weekday after Labor Day.  :)

The trail begins with a brick walkway taking you by the South Falls Lodge Cafe and Nature Store.

It was a short distance from there we reached the first waterfall, South Falls which is 177 feet high.  We had several viewpoints of the falls before taking the trail under it.  You can see the wooden fence in the middle of the picture showing the trail leading under the falls.

It was pretty neat to walk under the falls and continue on the trail to the next one.  This was one of three waterfalls that you walk under while taking the trail.

We continued on the trail completely shaded by the trails and following South Fork Silver Creek.

The next falls was 8/10 mile.  The Lower South Falls is 93 feet.  It's always amazing how each falls is different.

We now had to follow the trail 1 3/10 miles to the next falls.  The tree on the left had fallen down from the ridge above the trail. It was massive.

The next falls was the Lower North Falls.  It is 30 feet.

We had to divert from the trail 1/10 of a mile to see the next falls, Double Falls, 178 feet.  It you look at the very top over to the left of the tall falls, you can see the other falls coming down.

We thought this would be a good time to eat our sandwich we brought with us.  We were the only ones here for awhile.

Continuing on, we came to Drake Falls, 27 feet.  We weren't able to get a clear picture of the falls.

The next falls was probably our favorite, Middle North Falls, 106 feet.  You walked down to the falls walking underneath.  There's a person down there to the right of the falls to give some perspective.

After walking behind the falls, the trail goes around so you can see the falls from another viewpoint.  To get back on the trail, we needed to go back under the falls.

After viewing the Middle North Falls, we took the turnoff for the Winter Trail and saw our last waterfall for the day, Winter Falls, 134 feet.

This was one of the best hikes we have done.  The trail was wonderfully laid out.  It's not too strenuous and there are lots of places to stop and rest.  I'm sure in the springtime the waterfalls are much stronger, but today was pretty spectacular.