1st Day of Fall @ Silver Falls 9/22

[pdxgene]

Wanting to get out and enjoy a bit of sunshine on the first day of a new season I arrived at Silver Falls about 45 minutes after summer ended this morning (930). It took a while but I finally found a place to park...

I didn't think it would be crowded but this was great! And a glance at South Falls ,the first of dozens of photo ops throughout the day..

The flow in the creeks and over the falls is so low right now you can get down to the base of just about all of them. If you don't mind scrambling in the mud a bit.. This spot coming up looking at Lower South Falls usually would get you soaked but right now is really calm..

Lower North was the only one I didn't go down. There was a path but it looked a bit slicker and steeper than the rest with no real handholds. I would've done it for sure if someone else had been with me but I did a lot of scrambling in the mud and didn't want to push my luck. And it's always good to leave one for next time..

Middle North was also much more sedate than normal and easy to get down to. You can't quite get all the way, there's a good 8' or so dropoff to the river and I couldn't find even a good potential spot. Also keep in mind, these rocks are wet and slippery should anyone want to head down there soon.

Once the rain starts, even if you can get down there, it'll be too soaking wet to try and take pictures. There's a pretty narrow window between now and whenever that is. I'd never seen it this 'easy' before. But my main goal was the base level of North Falls..

Now in the picture it looks like you can just cruise right up the right side of the falls there nice and easy. That is far steeper than it looks. You can't. The best way down is from the opposite side. It did also require wading thru a bit of water because the footing was better than the exposed rocks. It was a nice enough day that wet feet were irrelevant.

From South to North Falls I saw 3 other people, none in the first couple hours. Kind of a slow pace taking pictures knowing I had the place to myself. Certainly more people coming back but it was early afternoon by then. Go in the morning on a weekday and it's great!
There were little patches of tiny flowers scattered here and there..

I was bending over trying to figure out what the orange thing this is (obviously I didn't) when I saw the wildlife shot for the day..

I like to do this out and back instead of the loop so it was about 10 miles on the trail plus a bunch of hillsides. The sun will be very un-cooperative facing Middle North and North Falls into the early afternoon. A cloudy day might work real nice but the sun felt pretty good. I was pretty well covered in mud/dirt from the waist down by the end of the day but that's the fun part. Dozens more pics in a bit at http://picasaweb.google.com/pdxgene/Sil ... tatePark12

[Splintercat]

Thanks, Gene - some nice Indian Summer pics, there! I don't remember ever seeing that parking lot empty on a day that wasn't 42 degrees and driving rain..!

Tom