Oregon's Crown Jewel State Park and Discovering the Oregon Coast

 

For years I've wanted to visit Silver Falls State park.  Known for its iconic  'Ten Falls Trail", this park nearly was a national park, but a forest fire during the construction of the lodge and campgrounds led the Park Service to back out and the state of Oregon was the gainer. We were joined here by our son and daughter-in-law and we did the famous hike--eight miles and 1,500 vertical feet, on the upper end of our typical hikes--and explored some nice bike trails as well.  Three of the waterfalls had trails behind the falling water for a different view of the feature and many of the falls were over 100 feet high.  Much of the trail was through old-growth forest with magnificent trees dripping with "old man's beard" moss. This is definitely a park we want to  visit again!

Leaving the old-growth forest, we headed over windy roads to the coast of Oregon, where we plan to spend at least a month.  Our  first stop was the tiny town (with a big name) of Pacific City.  The Oregon coast has its share of developed tourist spots complete with fast food franchises and big box supermarkets, but much of it is thinly-populated with small towns dotting the two-lane coast highway. Fishing, light agriculture and small-scale hospitality businesses are the lifeblood of these towns.  And beaches. Oregon has so many beaches and dunes, some easily accessible by car and many remote and requiring a walk or serious hike to find.  A short trail from our campground led to a beautiful beach end-capped with a huge sand dune and Rocky point.

We did a few hikes on nearby Cape Lookout, one on a foggy day and one when it was clear. Both were difficult hiking due to massive tree roots cris-crossing the trail for miles, but beautiful with old-growth forest, a secluded beach and wide vistas of the coast.

Loving the Oregon coast!