Portland Travel – Ten Falls Loop Hike

Portland Trip – Ten Falls Hike

 

 

This is first leg of our Portland Trip. After the Kickoff and Bit of drama, we are all set to explore the greenery in and near Portland.

 

 

 We got up at around 9 AM after a good sleep, We re-filled our tanks one at 7b petrol and our natural tank at Burger King. After 700 mile drive, we had to do another 77 mile for the actual fun to begin. We left Eugene at 10:30 AM and had three routes to chose to reach Silver Falls State Park which is our first destination

 

1.  I – 5 N  80 miles 1 hr 37 mins
2.  1-5 N and OR-214 N/Silver Falls Hwy SE  1 hr 38 min
3.  1-5N OR-226E and OR-214 N Silver Falls Hwy SE   1 hr 39 mins

 

      

 

 

 

Since the duration and distance was same, we chose to leave the already boring I-5 N highway and head towards the OR-226 E and OR-214 SE Hway. It turned out that we had made a good choice. We had to pass through a few residential and school areas where people strictly follow the Speed limits.  The speed limits were as low as 15mph as compared to California’s 25mph at residential / school area. While people in California vary their speeds to +/- 5, here in Oregon they seem to stick to speed limit pretty accurately. Vishnu had to control his instincts of upping the tempo just like anyone  who has jus arrived from India would have, after seeing such an empty road.

 

After few miles, we entered a narrow road with farmlands at both sides of the road and it was Blisss to see such a greenery, especially in USA taking the fact that the perception we Indians have about the USA. This country is not all about the skyscrapers, they do seriously take care of their natural resources such as forests and so on. I was seeing the amount of greenery after long time since I had left Udupi. We wanted to get out of the car, but we cannot stop our vehicles anywhere on the highway apart from designated parking spots or shoulders.  But  we made a  short video while driving through these nice farmlands.

 

 

 

We reached the Silver Falls State park around 1.30 PM and without wasting much time we were into our groove walking along the falls and for the first time I am experiencing the waterfall from its behind.  Silver falls state park a.k.a Ten Falls loop hike, where you can hike to see 10 amazing waterfalls where all of them are above 100ft in height, out of which four of them can be experienced by walking behind the waterfalls. The total trail is about 9 mile loopback hike. I don’t have words to explain the amazing experience I had, so here is the video. (Please note that I’m very poor in making video and adding sound effects, so if you don’t like the sound effects, Please mute and watch 🙂 )

 

 

 

Initially we thought we would be starved for food as it need solid 4-5 hours to reach all ten falls, but never felt even after walking around 5 miles with jus a burger in our stomach. We left the park around 7 pm. It is a 1.5 hours journey to Portland from the park. The journey was smooth except at the end where we could not cope up with Oregon low speed limits and few weird / different traffic rules. 

 

If you are going to Oregon after spending good time in Bay area, here are some rules which kinds of surprise you:

 

• The traffic lights are hanged on top with a rope in an unusual position, and we could not see the stop line at all. Me & Vishnu thought we had crossed few red signals and was worried about it. Till now we haven’t got any citation notice  from DMV and we think we are good.
• U turns are NOT permitted unless or otherwise written as such, which is exactly opposite of California driving rules
• Unlike most of the states in US, Gas stations ( In India we call them Petrol Bunks ) does not allow self-serving and on top of it, It is crime if we fill the gas by ourselves. There will be personnel to do the same and I would back this as it would certainly create more jobs.
• This one has to be strange of all, at least for me.  After all the hiking at waterfalls, we headed to restaurant which was inside the hotel room we checked in. Since my two pair of shoes was filled with dirt , I went bare feet so that I don’t make the floor dirty. But to my surprise, the restaurant waiter did not allow me and on top of that straightaway said that its the law that one cannot walk into restaurant with bare foot. Although I explained my situation, he did not listen to me and I had to walk in wearing the dirt shoes, which seemed fine for him.

 

Anyways, it was a good first day. We had a plan to goto Portland downtown, but could not as we were a bit tired and had to get back early the next day for another Scenic Drive.  More on that in next post.

 

Before I leave, Here are some of the Pictures captured from my Nikon D7000

 

This is not all of it. There is still more. I hate to share the photos through Facebook, but I have limited choice and soon will be migrating my photos to Flickr. For now, Here is the link to all Portland pics and my photography portfolio

Portland FB Album

My Flickr Photo Stream

500px Photo Stream

 Have Fun 🙂