Silver Falls

We drove to Silver Falls today through fields...



... and over hills with weird trees.


When we got there the fiddleheads were dancing...

... the bridge no longer had snow ...

... and the log cabin was empty.

"In 1935 President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced that the Silver Falls area would be turned into a Recreational Demonstration Area. Private land that had been logged was purchased, and workers in the Civilian Conservation Corps were employed to develop park facilities, including the historic South Falls Lodge, completed in the late 1930s."

There were a lot of people out for a Saturday outing at the Silver Falls State Park some far below.



A few things were blooming ...


... purple flowers, small and delicate but the real draw was ...


... the waterfalls, that white dot to the left of the falls is Sharyn, a faster walker.


I tend to stop and take a picture ever 15 feet or so and just can't keep up.


The power and beauty of the falls takes my breath away and my finger clicking the camera button.


Looking up from halfway down you can almost see the mist from the falls along the rim.


There is Sharyn again with the white shirt and red sweater wrapped around her waist.

"The history of the canyon's formation begins about 26 million years ago to the Oligocene period, when most of Oregon was covered by ocean. After the waters of the ocean receded about 15 million years ago, the flood basalt flows of the Columbia River Basalt Group covered the sandstone that had been the ocean floor. The softer layers of sandstone beneath the basalt sheet eroded over time, creating pathways behind some of the waterfalls."

I think I gos shots of the falls from 360 degrees not to mention the top and bottom.

"Around 1900, June Drake, a Silverton photographer, began pushing for park status. His early photographs of the falls have become classics. An inspector for the National Park Service rejected the area for national park status in 1926, however, because logging had scarred the area with "thousands of stumps that from a distance look like so many dark headstones."

I watch the water falling and wonder just how much passes over that cliff and suspect it's enough to fill a normal swimming pool every second - amazing.


Looking through the falls is really neat and the photography is technically difficult balancing the lighting and at the same time trying to keep the lens dry.


This shot is looking up from the path directly under the falls in the recess formed over time.


Colors and motion really fill the senses here.


Looking out from under the falls at Sharyn (always a step or 300 ahead) standing on the bridge below where the water flows after taking a giant leap over the edge.


Absolutely magnificent - honestly words fail me. Yes it is possible or maybe I'm sleepy - it's almost 1:00 am


The walkway beneath the falls has a lot of tubes cut into the rock face by the constant beat of the water.


I just love the fiddleheads.


Take from 270 degrees the splash of a lifetime, it's not Niagara but then Niagara isn't surrounded by a forest. And these falls are 100 feet higher though not nearly as wide.


I did walk downstream a little...


...and captured these lower rapids...


Then turned back to take a more distant shot of Silver Falls.


On my way back up the trail I took this picture virtually at the same level as the bottom of the falls.

"The forested land of the Pacific Northwest is not a stranger to sightings of an alleged Bigfoot (or Sasquatch) and Silver Falls State Park is no exception. The area has reportedly been rich with stories of the discovery of large footprints in the forested property that makes up the park, as well as the occasional sighting of a large, unknown cryptid."

"The term Cryptid was coined by John E. Wall in a 1983 letter to the International Society of Cryptozoology newsletter.

Evidence for the existence of cryptids is typically limited to anecdotal evidence or other forms of evidence insufficient to withstand normal scientific scrutiny by the general zoological community."

I took one final shot through the trees when I got back to the top.


We stopped by an Iris Farm on the way home but I'm saving those pictures for tomorrow night. Here is a preview for Monica and Meridith.

Scrabble Score ~ Scrabble Queen 374 - the Contender 323

Quote of the Day ~

"Fallingwater one of the great blessings to be experienced here on earth, I think nothing yet ever equaled the coordination, sympathetic expression of the great principle of repose where forest and stream and rock and all the elements of structure are combined so quietly that really you listen not to any noise whatsoever although the music of the stream is there." ~ Frank Lloyd Wright (Talking about the home named Fallingwater he designed)