Saturday, June 27, 2009

Silver Falls State Park

For a date Travis once took me to Silver Falls State Park to see the South Falls. I've been wanting to go back for a long time, so we took the boys for some short hikes around a few of the waterfalls on Silver Creek.
Before we could get to the first waterfall, we spotted this snake on the trail:

The most famous of the ten falls on Silver Creek is the South Falls. Here it is
on our approach, you can see little people on the path that passes behind it:

Part of the pathway has really low-hung rock, Travis
has to stick to the outside to avoid hitting his head.

Uncle Shane and aunt Angela were able to join us

Under South Falls

The falls pass over basalt rock which include lava
chimneys you can look up into. Here's some holes:

I convinced Avery to stand in the big hole


The trail down the other side of the falls

South Falls again from the other side


After we saw the South Falls, we drove to the other end of the canyon to check out the North Falls. As it happens, we walked up the path to Upper North Falls, so now we have to go back soon so we can see North Falls as well. The boys are adamant that we go soon, they really loved the trip.

On the way, there was this little waterfall coming down next to the path.
I convinced the boys we should climb up and see what kind of pool might be up there

Almost to Upper North Falls

Here we are

Shane and Angela


Looking downstream from the falls

We'll have to wait a long time before all the boys are
old enough to cross the log and play in the shallow area.

Time to go. These stairs are cut from the rock at the end of the path


A tree hanging on to the hillside

On the way back out Travis had to check out the little waterfall too

There's a long canopy of branches over a bump out from the trail here that looks cool.
My camera can't get a wide enough angle in the space to really show it.

Such a fun day, we'll have to go back really soon!

3 comments:

Angela said...

We love to visit Silver Creek whenever we can. Ethan loves climbing in the lava chimneys. He's disappeared on me a few times going in those things.

morgan said...

Beautiful photos! You are so talented, Laurie! The pic of Emmett over Travis' shoulder is so cute. Jace would have been trying to get into the water at every possible chance. Looks like fun!

Mom said...

Here's the photo of Emmett going over the shoulder.
Such lovely greens. It looks so cool and inviting.