As everyone knows, Sunday was a gorgeous, cool (high 30's) and sunny day.
We were looking for a nice simple
hike that we knew would be enjoyable. We decided on Silver Falls State Park. I should have known there would be a big crowd on such a beautiful day, but we decided to bite the bullet anyway.
When we arrived at the South Falls parking lot there must have been at least 30+ cars/trucks. Instead of going on the typical falls
hike (and confronting the crowds), we took off on an unusual loop we hadn't done before. I'm not sure I can describe all the trails and turns we made, so hopefully the pictures will make up for it?
We started off hiking on the bike trail, from the South Falls parking lot.
Almost immediately we noticed the blue rings around many of the trees.
Was this another Molalla Recreation area like logging effort?
We did read some tags contained on a few trees that made this sound like a thinning project. We were grateful that NONE of the larger trees had the blue rings around them. We also noted that the logging appeared to be confined to the South Falls area, and wasn't, currently, within the backcountry!
We continued on the bike trail until we reached Hwy 214. We then crossed the road and continued counterclockwise around another bike loop. A short distance around the loop we intersected a trail that led to the horse ranches. The ranch is located in a large open meadow, and the area is quite picturesque.
We soon reached the ranch, and scouted the area for a bit.
After visiting the Old Ranch, we walked down the road until we could merge back with the trail. We crossed the road and soon intersected the bridge over the South Fork of Silver Creek.
And I stopped to take a few pictures of the creek. I used the guard rail as the tripod for the time exposure.
We then continued on the trail until reaching the Buck Mountain loop trail. We only went down this trail for a short distance until we turned around due to it getting late. While walking through the forest I noticed the beautiful display of G-d rays!
We ended up completing the loop by taking a portion of the Howard Creek Loop Trail back through the Howard Creek Horse Camp. From the horse camp we turned onto the #214 trail and continued onto the Campground Trail. Continuing past the Camprground we completed the loop along another bike trail toward the South Falls. I know, what a convoluted
hike.
We actually didn't know how we would get back to our car. I just started following the trails around and stopped to look at maps along the many trail intersections.
When we got close to the South Fork of Silver Creek we stopped to look at the huge flow! The last time we were here the creek looked more like a wide stream.
And we spent a small amount of time near the South Falls, and admired the torrent of water flowing over the cliff!
The
hike was 8.2 miles with an elevation gain of just over 700ft.
I guess this is the price we pay to find out of the way hiking opportunities?