Silver Falls State Park--One of Our Favorite Hikes of 2017

Silver Falls State Park has been recommended to us by more than one Oregonian. So that's the reason we are camping in the nearest town to it--Silverton, and staying at the Silver Spur RV Park. (Do you notice there is a lot of silver going on? We're staying in Silverton at Silver Spur RV to go to Silver Falls!) We found the Silver Spur RV Park in our Passport America directory, but there are limitations to this half-price camping club. RV parks often limit the half-price stays to weekdays, and others don't allow it during the busier summer months. We were sad to find that Silver Spur was one of those parks that changes to full-price on May 1. We would have liked to linger here, but for their higher camping price we will have to see the sights in a hurry. We are finding that Oregon is rightfully known for its rainfall, but that also makes for beautiful rainbows.

However, we were blessed with beautiful weather on our first full-day in Silverton, so we headed toward Silver Falls State Park. Wow! Just a few steps from the parking lot and we were already seeing why this state park was so highly recommended!

This is the first waterfall on the "Trail of Ten Falls" we are hiking today. South Falls is 177 feet high, and the trail took us right behind the falls! Mark took pictures of Denisa behind the falls in the picture above and below. She's wearing an easy-to-spot turquoise blouse that will show up in lots of waterfall pictures today just to illustrate how big these falls are.

It's an interesting view down the canyon from behind the falls.

The second waterfall was less than a mile down the trail. That's the 93-foot-tall Lower South Falls roaring over that rocky ledge.

This is such a great hike! The falls are spaced about 30 minutes apart. It seems that we're just recovering from the awe of the last falls, and we can already hear the roar up ahead from the next. Welcome to Waterfall #3--Lower North Falls.

Twenty minutes later we have hiked to the tallest of the waterfalls--Double Falls at 178 feet.

We are now at waterfall #5--Drake Falls, and we are half-way through the falls for the day. But it doesn't seem like we've been hiking very long because there is always another waterfall just around the next corner.

While there is plenty of scenery to keep us entertained, Denisa is always looking for wildflowers along the way. This was a new one that we haven't seen before, and we found out that this is Western Corydalis.

Here's another unique bloom with an even more unique mottled brown leaf that we've never seen before. Is Oregon inventing new wildflowers?

We've arrived at waterfall #6, and it's one of our favorites. Many hikers assume this side view is close enough, and then continue on down the trail.

But with a little more hiking, it's another of those walk-behind falls. You can barely see Denisa peeking between the water drops.

This is becoming one of our favorite hikes of the year!

There is so much water pouring over that rock ledge that the mist in the air is forming rainbows. We hate to complain, but all that mist is also tough for someone wearing glasses. Denisa doesn't know how many times she has had to clean her glasses since we started this hike.

Now that we are spoiled with a trail of constant falls, Denisa gets easily bored when she actually has to hike for a whole mile without a waterfall. That's when she starts taking pictures of wildflowers again--like this beautifully simple Trillium that has turned from white to pink.

Here's another new one to us. We didn't find the name of this one so Denisa has named it "Upright Purple Flower that Turns into Downward Facing Bells". Pretty catchy name, huh?

Wildflower pictures slow a hike down, so Mark was glad when fall #7 shows up. This is supposed to be Twin Falls, but it's hard to see the space between the two falls. This year there is so much water that the twin falls almost flowed together to completely cover the rocks.

It's amazing to us that these roaring waterfalls are all flowing from the North Fork of Silver Creek. It seems like a mild-mannered little creek when the landscape is flat. We also include this picture with Mark in it, just to prove that he came along on this hike.

We have to hike 1.1 mile further--our longest dry spell on this great hike--before we get to the grandest of all. Waterfall #8 is the North Falls. You know the drill--try to find Denisa in the next few pictures of this great fall.

Because of that deep overhanging ledge, the roar of the waterfall is echoing. Standing far behind that ledge on the trail, it sounds like the roar of jet engines are reverberating around us.

We tried to capture the grandeur of North Falls, and you can barely see Denisa far behind in that turquoise blouse. We must say that we have once again wandered into another of God's wonders on this hike!

There's some work to be done to climb the steps out of the canyon after North Falls, because the rest of the hike will be on the rim.

Not all ten of the waterfalls are on the loop trail. For example, we had to walk an extra .8 mile to see waterfall #9. This one looked a little slick, so Mark got nominated to be in this picture. Sure enough, even sure-footed Mark slipped on the wet and slippery rocks close to the water. Denisa photographed the first fall at the falls. It looks like there will be eleven falls on this hike instead of just the planned ten.

But we still got our picture of Waterfall #9--Upper North Falls.

We are three hours into our hike by now, but neither of us feels tired. Even without ten nice waterfalls to keep us entertained, we would still think this is a great hike in a crazy green forest.

Our trail was also filled with waterfalls that weren't counted among the ten on the map. We stopped counting when we found twenty different big and small falls that weren't documented.

We've walked over eight miles by now, and the tenth waterfall is going to take a major detour down-hill. But neither of us is going to leave this hike unfinished. So we made the extra trek to the 134- foot Winter Falls.

Mark took the picture above by walking over the wet and slippery rocks. If you look on the left hand side of the picture below, you will see that Denisa was quite happy to sit on the bench with the other normal hikers enjoying the waterfall view from there. She's actually resting up for the hike up the hill to get back to the rim trail once again.

We feel liked we have triumphed over the Trail of Ten Falls, having seen every one of them. The only problem is that we are still a couple miles from our car. it's a good thing we were hiking through a lovely forest.

It's also a good thing that Denisa is easily entertained by delicate little wildflowers along the trail.

We notice that many of the trees along this trail are the coast redwoods that we thought we had left behind in California. It's nice to see these giants once again.

By the time we got back to the car, we had hiked 10.5 miles up and down the canyons of Silver Falls State Park. We also know why so many people told us that we needed to visit this park. It's one of our very favorite hikes of 2017!