Trail of Ten Falls

We drove to Silver Falls State Park to hike the Trail of Ten Falls Hike. This is a loop hike with some short spurs. About 7.8 miles with about 800 ft of overall gain. We decided to do the loop clockwise starting with South Falls. South Falls as seen from the trail heading down to the falls.

I love the rocky overhang that the trail goes under while it goes behind the falls.

View form behind South Falls

Hiking behind South Falls

View of South Falls from the other side of the trail

 Most of the falls are along the Canyon Trail in a lush forest. View of Silver Creek

Lower South Falls

View from behind Lower South Falls

More views of the trail going through the forest in the bottom of the canyon.

Lower North Falls

Double Falls is up a short spur trail

Drake Falls is mostly hidden from view behind some branches.

I love the way the morning sun lights up the leaves.

Middle Falls as seen from a distance.

Hiking the spot trail behind Middle Falls.

Interesting texture and color in the ceiling of the overhang across from Middle Falls.

View of Middle Falls from under the overhang across from the falls

We were unable to see Twin Falls due to the trees.

View of North Falls from the trail, which goes behind the falls and over to the other side of the canyon.

Steps on the trail going up out of the canyon.

Another spur trail goes under the road by the North Falls Parking Area and leads to Upper North Falls.

We then returned to the loop and continued along the rim trail, which is another lovely forested trail.

We went down a short distance along the Winter Trail to see Winter Falls, which doesn't have much water in it today.

some of the wildflowers seen along the trail today:

 

  

  

 

 

  

 

 

 

  

 

Pilot Rock

Today we took Exit 1 off of I-5 in Southern Oregon to do the Pilot Rock Hike. Our route was 3.2 miles round trip with about 1,000 ft of gain. We did not go to the top of Pilot Rock as I'm not comfortable with that level of scrambling. We enjoyed this trail as there were lots of wildflowers in bloom. We saw 9 hikers on the trail, all in the last mile back to the trailhead.

Lots of wildflowers near the trailhead.

First sighting of Pilot Rock, it was difficult to get a good photo as the sun was right behind and above the rock.

Columbine was one of the many wildflowers we saw in bloom today.

Most of the gain is in the last mile of the trail, the route got steeper and steeper.

We scrambled part way up this route.

We took another trail up on the south side of Pilot Rock.

Some other rock formations near Pilot Rock.

View to the south west from the base of Pilot Rock.

Another look back at Pilot Rock as we made our way down the trail.

some of the  wildflowers we saw along the trail: