June 25 - 26, 2004
Twenty-six million years ago, what is now Oregon was covered by an ocean which lay down multiple layers of sand. After the ocean receded, or the land rose, eruptions of lava 15 million years ago buried 25 thousand square miles of Washington and Oregon beneath 100 feet of basalt. With heavy, solid rock on top of soft sand, unusual geological events were about to be set in motion. In this moderate rain forest, with an annual rainfall of 80 inches, streams have been eroding channels through the basalt. When the streams reached the edge of the basalt flows, they gradually gouged canyons and undercut into the softer sandstone and limestone beneath. The result is a straight wall of basalt with caverns underneath where the soft sandstone has fallen away or been blown away by the wind or waterfall's spray.
Two hundred years ago, Lewis and Clark explored this region. Shortly afterwards, the first settlers traveled the Oregon Trail and settled in the Oregon Territory. They found a land filled with ancient forests of fir, hundreds of years old and hundreds of feet high. The farmers settled the Willamette River Valley , founding the city of Salem, which became the state capitol. Loggers came and completely cleared the land of the ancient forests. Today, only a handful of the old fir trees remain in Oregon, the bulk of them having been felled in the first hundred years of settlement. Then the forests began to renew themselves, but it will take many centuries before our descendants will be able to experience an old growth forest again, if at all.
Early in the 20th Century, June Drake, explorer and photographer, tramped through the second growth forest east of Salem, photographing the many waterfalls of Silver Creek, where the stream reached the edge of the basalt layers. The falls, which had been ignored by the loggers, captured his attention. He photographed them and pushed for the formation of a National Park, but the Department of Interior was not interested in preserving a second growth wooded area which had been devastated by the logging industry.
Eventually he convinced the State of Oregon to set aside Silver Falls State Park, 8700 acres of parkland protecting the ten magnificent waterfalls of Silver Creek from further development. Today you can hike the seven mile Trail of Ten Falls and view firsthand from a well marked and maintained trail, what Mr. Drake, pushing through heavy undergrowth, photographed for us over 80 years ago. The second growth forest is covering up the scars of the strip mining of the original forest.
We began our tour by walking the North Falls Trail, which takes you behind and beneath the North Falls, which have undercut the softer sandstone beneath the hard basalt. I had seen photographs of these falls, but actually walking to them and behind them needs to be personally experienced. North Falls drops 136 feet, and seen from a distance, the hikers walking the trail behind the falls are only tiny dots of color, giving one a true perspective of the size and height of these falls. Sitting on a bench behind the roaring falls gives one an opportunity to contemplate the wonders of the forces forming the landscape of this planet.
Friday and Saturday we spent exploring nine of the ten waterfalls in the park, climaxing our walk by sitting on a rock at the base of 178 foot Double Falls, feeling the cool breeze and spray in our faces. The tenth fall was too difficult to reach because a segment of the trail was closed due to damage caused by the ice storms of the winter of 2003 and 2004.
We will not attempt to describe each and every waterfall, but are including photographs of the some of the highlights. To see a larger view of each image, click on the thumbnail pictures below. Each will open up in a new window; simply close the window to return here.
