After the hike...Friday

We set out at about 8:30 on our six mile trek…wouldn’t you know it? I forgot my digital camera. Aleene has her film camera, but, sorry, no pictures. And did we see sights!

Just like Michigan was prehistoric lake bottom, Oregon was once covered by the Pacific Ocean. Yep, and the water receded leaving a sandstone base. Then the volcanoes started doing their thing and formed layers of basalt on top of the sand stone. There were glaciations and tectonic plate action leaving these deep cuts in the rainforest. And we walked in, down, around and under Silver Creek gorge. I say under because two of the first falls we visited come down well over a hundred feet off an overhanging cliff and the trail actually goes behind the falls. A-babe did take some film of that. Amazing.

Silver Creek is not all that big as rivers go…but it sure shifts elevations with grand splendor. We saw six of the ten falls…cut off about two miles of the trail by doing so. We also did not take the back hike to the “double” falls since another couple started back there just as we came to the fork in the trail. They looked like they wanted to be alone. But, hey, we saw some serious water falls today and would recommend the walk to anyone who is into hiking those kinds of distances.

Walking along the river on the canyon floor we rounded a turn and straight across the river from us…peering with their beady little eyes were three deer: a doe and two fawns. They were white-tail to be sure, but they were in dark coat about the shade of the rocks they were strolling through. I would guess the fawns were this year’s crop…about half grown. They watched us closely and then ambled up stream. After seeing the little black tail on the Rogue River three weeks ago, these were very big deer.

Silver Falls State Park is by far the nicest we have been in…I think ever. It is open year round and has a lodge, cabins, lots of parking, lots of picnic area and a great campground with a good mixture of tent and RV spaces. We have put it on our list of places to take visitors if and when you come west. Incidentally, you can see the first two falls which are among the tallest at over 160 feet without doing the six miles.

We got back at 12:00 noon and Aleene fixed lunch (my personal cook.) She says she has a personal driver who takes care of all the stuff that comes out of our bodies. She takes care of the stuff that goes into our bodies. How can you do better than that?