Friday, July 14, 2017

Oregon Excursions, Part I: Silver Falls State Park and Oregon Coast

Here is the first of hopefully several posts about trips I take while I'm in Oregon. This one is about my trip a few weeks ago to Silver Falls State Park and the coast with two of my coworkers. We had a great time, and I enjoyed getting to see more of Oregon. It's a beautiful state and I hope to see as much of it as possible while I'm here for the season.

So our first stop on the journey was Silver Falls State Park, which is several hours north of Crater Lake. The hike we did was called Trail of Ten Falls, and it was a a loop of about 8 miles (exact distance is questionable because none of the maps and signs at the park seemed to agree with each other) that passed ten waterfalls along the way. The scenery was amazing lush greenery which was reminiscent of a tropical landscape and reminded me of Costa Rica in certain places, and some of the waterfalls were breathtaking. Here are some pictures of our hike (the following group of photos is courtesy of my coworker Tara Chizinski).


This waterfall was the main attraction (I believe it was the tallest one) so there were lots of people around. As soon as we got past the first few falls, the crowd decreased dramatically and the hike was very quiet and calm. 


A great feature of this trail was that it went behind several of the falls so you got views from all sides.

Me and Rachel admiring the waterfall

Even the smaller falls were beautiful. Unfortunately I can't remember the names of them, but the pictures mostly speak for themselves. 



Another one that had a trail going behind it, with me and Rachel watching again.

This was one of the last ones, and probably my favorite. The rock overhang went really far out and created almost a cave behind the waterfall.  

You get a bit of a sense of the cave-like feel in this picture.

After our long hike, we stayed at the campground at the park for one night, which was awesome because I hadn't been camping since I left Montana last summer. There's just something about sleeping outdoors that I love, and somehow state park campgrounds are always comforting to me, even though you're really close to other campers (and the campground was completely full that weekend). 

The next morning we set off again and headed for the coast. This part of our trip wasn't quite as planned out, so we just drove until we got to the ocean and made our way south, stopping every time we saw a nice view or when something caught our eye. The scenery along the Oregon coast blew me away, it is so green and gorgeous, with conifer trees going almost all the way to the water in some places, and a mixture of rocky cliffs and sandy beaches. Here are some pictures of our stops (some I took and others were taken by Tara).




I would love to live there!




A highlight of this part of the trip was the whalewatching! We saw whales in several different places, and Tara got this picture perfectly as a whale was breaching. So cool!

Devil's Punch Bowl in Otter Rock, OR (photo by Tara Chizinski)

Yaquina Head Lighthouse (photo by Tara Chizinski)

Yaquina Head Lighthouse

The beach near the lighthouse was made up of these fist-sized rocks instead of sand. 

The black rock beach was neat, the rocks made a cool noise when the water moved them.
The amazing view from Cape Perpetua, a tall cliff you can hike or drive up (we drove) and get great views of the surrounding coast (photo by Tara Chizinski).

A picture I took of not as good quality but you can see more of the forests and mountains

After making it to Cape Perpetua, which was the area of the coast Tara most wanted to see, it was time to find a place to sleep for the night. However, this proved to be a challenge because we didn't have anything reserved like we had the night before and all of the campgrounds we passed all day were full. Most of the land along this part of coast was state parks (which is awesome because it preserves the natural beauty), so there was no way we'd be able to camp without a reservation at any of those. But then farther inland was a National Forest, which was lucky for us because on Forest Service land you are allowed to camp even if there is no campground as long as you are a certain distance from a road. So we spent some time exploring Forest Service roads looking for a spot to camp, and eventually found one, although it didn't exactly meet the criteria for a permitted campsite. The best we found ended up being a trailhead about 2 miles up a dirt road where we found a spot to pitch a tent. We were not the only ones with the same idea either; there was a camper parked in the lot and a couple who set up their tent a bit farther up the trail. It was a nice spot to camp, and no one came and bothered us about it. In the morning, I went for a walk up the trail a bit and it was so peaceful and beautiful. I love early morning in the forest when the light is still subdued and the birds are all waking up. Being out in the nature at that time of day is one of my favorite things about camping. 

Once we were all awake and got ready at a leisurely pace, we got back on the road. We drove a bit farther south along the coast, stopping a few times for more pictures, and then went east again and took a bit of a scenic route back to Crater Lake. I didn't take as many pictures on this section of the journey, but here are a few. 


Another beautiful bit of coastline a bit further south (photo by Tara Chizinski)





We also drove past the Oregon Dunes, which is a section of coastline that abruptly changes from forests and cliffs to sand dunes. Sadly we didn't stop to see much of it, and I didn't take any pictures, but maybe I'll go back sometime and see more of it.

So that about wraps it up for my first weekend trip, but it certainly won't be the last. A couple weekends ago I took my first solo backpacking trip, and this weekend I'm planning to go to Bend and Smith Rock State Park, so I will definitely write about those two trips as soon as I get the chance. Thanks for reading!

1 comment:

  1. This sounds so cool! I really like the pictures, especially the picture of the lighthouse that Tara took. I wish I could have been there with you. I've been craving nature these days really badly and I really want to go camping soon. Northern Germany doesn't have great weather for it, though, and living in a city means the opportunities are lacking.

    -Dee

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