Trip Report: Trail of Ten Falls

Trip Stats

Distance: 8 miles
Time: 3 hours (and change)

Background

The trail of ten falls is located in Oregon’s Silver Falls State Park, about 90 minutes south of Portland. When I first started planning my weekend in Portland, I knew there was going to be some hiking on the itinerary. The obvious choice is usually to head to Portland’s backyard: the Columbia River Gorge. Unfortunately, there was the devastating fire that hit the area in late summer.  A lot of the hikes I was interested in were closed indefinitely. I guess I had to find a plan B.

The name of the trail was very intriguing. Trail of Ten Falls: that’s a lot of falls. The distance seemed a little off putting.  Eight miles is possibly a little long for a half day hike.  Fortunately, most of the beta I was reading about the walk said people typically spent 3 hours on the hike, so it sounded like a go! We woke up at 8AM, grabbed some coffee and hit the road 🙂

Canyon Trail

The trail of ten falls loop is actually made by linking two trails: canyon trail and rim trail. For a fantastic start, head out on canyon trail. You will immediately find yourself at South Falls, arguably the best waterfall on the trail. I would argue against you if you said that, but it was Dennis’s favorite. Before you reach the south falls amphitheatre, you will have the option to take a short side trip to Frenchie falls. This is the one side trip I would suggest you skip. By the end of the loop you will have waterfall fatigue, and it just wasn’t all that great.

Continue down the canyon trail and you will have the opportunity to walk behind South Falls. It is a very cool experience and you will get wet. This is a beautiful waterfall, but don’t spend too much time here, you still have 9 more!

There was a trail race in the park the day I did the trail, and the runners were travelling in the opposite direction as me. About a mile later when I hit Lower South Falls, there was a photographer setup to take action shots of the runners as they passed behind that waterfall. I wish I had known about this race ahead of time to sign up for this shot alone. It really would have been an epic. Passing under this fall was also one of the first times in my life I wish I brought a tripod hiking with me. Lower south falls is a crowd pleaser and bottle-neck along the trail.

The next mile-ish after lower south falls was uneventful. It was very lush, and beautiful, but there were a lot of people. Finally we arrived at lower north falls. Under normal circumstances, it would be a very lovely waterfall, but compared to the previous two, it was just ok.

Just past lower north falls, there is a side trip to double falls. Definitely go check it out! Standing right beneath double falls is a very cool experience. It is a very intimate view point.  There is this cool rush of air that comes over you in the tiny canyon at the base of the falls. This one was probably one of my favorites.

Back on the trail, you pass drake falls. Like lower north, it is not a particularly captivating waterfall. Keep going and you get to another short side trip where you go and walk behind middle north falls. This was my favorite waterfall by a mile. As you wrap behind the fall you come to this amazing view point which was definitely the highlight of the hike from me.

At this point, I thought the trail kept going, but actually you have to backtrack to the trail to avoid bushwhacking. The next waterfall you pass is twin falls. Not an exciting waterfall for me, and also at this point I was beginning to feel waterfall-fatigue :/ We passed a few runners at this point who asked me to take a picture of them. I did, but I have no idea how to get the photos to them, plus, I’m sure they weren’t as good as the action shots on the course.

After some uneventful walking, we finally arrived at North Falls: The crown jewel of the canyon trail. This waterfall has a giant cavern behind it with some amazing vantage points. After stopping for some photo ops, we finished the canyon trail which ends at a parking lot. There is one more quick side trip beyond the parking lot to see upper north falls.

Rim Trail

At this point, we had seen 9 of the 10 waterfalls, the race was wrapping up, and the weather was deteriorating. Reports online say that the Rim Trail is a letdown after the Canyon Trail. It certainly wasn’t as dramatic as walking through the canyon, but I saw some of my favorite views of the day on the Rim Trail. I guess one reason why people might not like it as much is that you are walking right next to the road.

We still had one more waterfall to see, but we were also starting to get really cold. When we finally came to the junction with Winter Falls (aptly named for our trip), we had a moment of deliberation as to whether we were going to go check it out. In the end, we had come to see ten waterfalls and would not settle for any less. We head down to see it. I certainly do not regret making the side trip to go see the tenth waterfall, but it also was just not as spectacular as some of the other falls we had seen during the day. Plus, there was a couple standing there ruining our photo-ops :p

The last mile or so parallels a bike path, and it was just a casual stroll through cold drizzle back to the car. Overall all the Trail of Ten Falls did not disappoint. It is the perfect length and distance from Portland to be a good half day trip if you want to get out of the city and into the woods.  We made it back to Portland just in time to share a cheese plate at Cheese and Crack.  A solid day in my book 🙂