If you search the internet for “Best Oregon State Park,” Silver Falls comes up near the top on almost every list (except for the Guardian, but that’s a British publication, so I’ll cut them some slack). This is easy to understand if you’ve ever been there and seen it, but if you haven’t and you’re wondering what all the fuss is about, read on!
Silver Falls State Park is the state’s biggest park with over 9,000 acres of temperate rainforest (it’s a thing, I promise), tons of native Oregon plants and wildlife, historical sites, and, most importantly of all, ten massive waterfalls and numerous smaller ones. The waterfalls aren’t just massive; they’re beautiful. The geologic features of the park are similarly impressive. It’s all very Instagrammable.
The most important information you need is how to visit. The park straddles both sides of Hwy 214, about 15 miles southeast of Silverton in the Willamette Valley. From Salem, it’s 20-25 East, depending on the source. Driving to the park is all but necessary—the only scheduled tours for tree climbs or combining the trip with wine-tasting (although if wine-tasting is up your alley…)
There’s camping at Silver Falls, including cabins for rent, but I will focus on single-day visits. This is a fee park, meaning parking costs $5 daily. Unless, of course, you have the Oregon State Parks pass that I highly recommended in my last post.
In my opinion, the best time to visit the falls is from May to late July. Snowmelt is still swelling Silver Creek, making the thunder of the falling water loud enough to feel in your feet as you stand behind North Falls looking out. Many native wildflowers are in bloom during this period. Different blooms will come and go all summer and fall, but this is the best month to see a large variety.
To see all the waterfalls in the park, follow the Trail of Ten Falls, a loop between 7 and just over 8 miles—it depends on the specific trails you follow. There are also shorter loops, such as the Maple Ridge trail, a 2.6-mile loop. There’s a much shorter loop just to see South Falls, the second-highest cascade in the park (it’s one foot shorter than Double Falls, which is a longer hike and, while impressive, isn’t quite as awe-inspiring). Or just walk along, finding waterfalls until you begin to get tired or cranky, then turn back.
For a much easier visit, go to South Falls. It’s frequented and the area with the most day-use parking. The hike to the falls from the parking area is less than a half-mile, although there are a few different ways to go. South Falls is 177 feet high, and the hike is from the top down to the canyon below the cascade, where you can view the impressive fall of water from a bridge slightly downstream—meaning the elevation change on the trail is about 200 feet. An even shorter trip (with less elevation change) is to view the falls from one of the lookouts up top, hike down behind the falls, and then turn back.
The trail is steep in places, but I have seen people of varying mobility do it. There’s wheelchair access to a viewpoint above the falls—a great view—but the actual trail down is only navigable by walking. People sometimes take young kids in lightweight wagons, but it requires portaging down and back up a few flights of stairs. I remember riding in a backpack on my dad’s back to view the park when I was a little kid.
One of the best things about South Falls—and a few other falls in the park—is the trail leading behind the veil of the water. Softer basalt layers behind the cascades have eroded, creating a cave-like “rock shelter” with a handy —and broad—natural trail to walk on. Looking above at the shelf of rock overhead, lava tree molds are visible voids in the lava rock. From behind the falls, the Silver Creek canyon meanders downslope, calm again after rushing over the cliff and thundering into a deep pool. If you continue, the falls can be viewed from a bridge just past the pool into which the water cascades.
North Falls is the second easiest to access, with a much smaller day-use parking area. In my opinion, this one is superior to South Falls, albeit shorter. You can easily see Upper North and North Falls from the parking lot by hiking less than a mile, with less elevation gain. It’s not a loop trail, and parts of it are steeper than South Falls. The creek views above North Falls from the trail reveal some fantastic geologic features. The creek rushing through these rocks makes an attractive and dramatic set of rapids or mini-falls. Once at North Falls itself, the trail behind the cascade reveals a deeper rock shelter with worn sedimentary layers visible in between the basalt ones.
If you have less than a couple of hours or you have younger kids who can only handle so much, visiting just North and South Falls is the best bet and easily worth the trip and the day-use fee. To round off the visit, there’s a nature store and a concession selling snacks, beverages, and sandwiches.
As mentioned above, exploring the geology is another reason to visit the park. The formation of the falls over the millennia, combined with lava flows, created some unique rock formations and an impressive canyon. The park’s history is mostly visible in the historic buildings, from the earliest logging settlement on the site to the lodge, built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s. These can mostly be found in the South Falls area. There’s also a ranch area with historic buildings and fabulous scenery to the east. On top of this, there’s the native plant life, including many little-known berries and trees dripping with moss. This is characteristic of a temperate rainforest, which receives 50-200 inches of precipitation annually.
Many other hikes lead to impressive vistas other than waterfalls. In addition, there are equestrian trails and some mountain bike trails. There’s even a fabulous wedding venue/retreat center that can be rented out.
Full disclosure time: I grew up in Silverton and visited the park more times than I can count, so my opinion may be biased. I would argue that it’s not because I didn’t truly appreciate the falls (as we locals refer to it) until I was an adult. Most of my childhood memories are of a damp, cold, steep, muddy walk behind various waterfalls, usually swaddled in a raincoat that didn’t stand up to the sometimes sideways windblown clouds of mist coming off the cascade of water. It was way too familiar for me to appreciate the wonder.
I had no notion that most other places didn’t have ten falls so close together next door. I never realized that walking behind a waterfall was not the usual way to visit them. Or that the sheer amount of precipitation that fell from Western Oregon skies made them more massive and, therefore, more impressive.
I’ve now traveled enough to realize its uniqueness and become a “falls pusher.” I’m not embarrassed by that; if you visit, I’m sure you’ll understand why not.
It’s also an excellent spot to begin a hike to other falls, including making the entire Trail of the Ten Falls—
I’m not sure when I began to appreciate the park. I remember when I was a senior in high school, my boyfriend’s older brother said his professor had been to national parks around the world, and he thought Silver Falls was one of the most beautiful spots on Earth. This startled me; I even doubted the guy had been to many great places, but I started paying more attention. My boyfriend and I hiked the entire Ten Falls Trail shortly after that, and I could see it if I squinted.
In my twenties, working for the Oregon Department of Forestry, part of my fire patrol area was Silver Falls, and I began to see how other people reacted to it, including people I worked with who hadn’t grown up a stone’s throw from the park. I really got it when I started going to parks in different parts of the world. More than once, I have hiked farther than I wanted to to see some waterfalls and thought, “That’s it?” I tend not to make a significant effort to see other waterfalls. I mean, if it’s something like Niagara Falls (massive single falls and of geologic import), Angel Falls in Venezuela (longest vertical drop in the world), or Victoria Falls on the border of Zimbabwe and Zambia (largest in the world) I’d do it. In fact, Victoria Falls, or Mosi-oa-Tunya, is on my bucket list.
I thought it was cool, of course. Still, the overwhelming number of my childhood memories are of huddling in a raincoat, fingers nearly numb with cold, and many of them feature eating some half-soaked granola bar while standing up because there was no place dry enough to sit.
I also have significantly different memories, of course. I remember swimming in Silver Creek above North Falls in very, very cold water—of course, most of our streams were very cold and still are. I remember seeing ant hills in the forests there that were as tall as me. I remember going to birthdays and family events there.
2022 was the 100th anniversary of the founding of the first state park.
