For last weekends hike, we headed south to Silver Creek Falls State Park, taking advantage of yet another clear October day. Here, we could get in a long walk, enjoy the fall colors and see a whole lot of waterfalls.

Silver Creek State Park is on Highway 214, South of Silverton, and East of Salem. It is a full service park, and at about 9,000 acres, it is one of the largest in the state. The CCC built the South Falls Lodge in the 1930’s. The construction of the lodge is first class, and the all the original dining furniture, made from two myrtlewood trees are impressive.

On our hike, we took one of our hiking books by William Sullivan. This one, ‘Oregon Trips & Trails’ , is one of my favorites, though most all of his books are really great. With Williams’ help, we were able to pick out the a good route, which turned out to be little more than 5 miles. Though the trails are all very well cared for and there are large maps along the way, so it is easy to navigate the trails of the park. The trails take you up close to all the falls. You can even walk behind a couple of them.

Our route took us by 9 of the 10 waterfalls, and by bringing along our well worn copy of Romance of Waterfalls, we could look up each waterfall along the way, talk a bit about each one, and then mark them off in the book, as a way to track all the falls that we have seen. (ya, I know how that sounds)

Slides from our hike are at goliniel.coms Silver Creek Falls Slideshow