Silver Falls State Park

Silver Falls State Park: walk behind thundering waterfalls along the historic Trail of Ten Falls.

Silver Falls State Park is Oregon's largest state park, spanning more than 9,000 acres in the dense, moss-draped foothills of the Cascade Range. Located roughly 20 miles east-southeast of Salem, this protected canyon system is defined by its dramatic volcanic geology. Around 15 million years ago, massive Columbia River basalt flows swept across the region, cooling into a hard, dark capstone. Over millennia, Silver Creek and its tributaries carved through this basalt, eroding the softer sandstone and tuffaceous layers underneath. This selective erosion created deep, hollowed-out amphitheaters beneath the basalt ledges, allowing the modern Trail of Ten Falls to pass directly behind four of the park's ten major cascades. The grandest of these is South Falls, where a 177-foot curtain of water plunges over a sheer basalt lip, filling the canyon with a constant, low roar and a cool, wet mist that scents the air with damp earth and stone.

The human history of this landscape stretches back thousands of years before its designation as a state park. Ancestors of the Kalapuya and Molalla people, who are now part of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, originally used these forests and canyons for hunting and spirit quests. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the area was heavily logged, and a small settlement known as Silver Falls City briefly existed near the falls. The drive to preserve the area began in the early 1900s, spearheaded by Silverton photographer June Drake, who campaigned to save the cascades from logging. Alongside Samuel Boardman, the first superintendent of Oregon State Parks, Drake successfully lobbied for the park's official dedication in July 1933. In 1935, the federal government designated the site as a Recreational Demonstration Area, bringing in Civilian Conservation Corps Company 611. Over seven years, these young men built the park's stone retaining walls, wooden bridges, and the historic Silver Falls Lodge, which still showcases hand-carved Oregon myrtlewood furniture.

The park's primary attraction is the Trail of Ten Falls, a 7.2-mile loop that traces the canyon rim and descends to the creek bed, guiding hikers past ten distinct waterfalls. While South Falls provides the classic introduction, the trail reveals a diverse sequence of cascades, including the 136-foot North Falls, the delicate sheet of Winter Falls, and the remote Double Falls, which is the tallest in the park at 178 feet. Four of these falls (South, Lower South, Middle North, and North Falls) feature wide, recessed caverns behind the water curtains, offering hikers a sensory experience of the thundering flow. The trail is lined with towering Douglas firs, Western hemlocks, and Western red cedars, with a lush understory of sword ferns, oxalis, and thick green moss. For those seeking an accessible option, the park opened the North Rim Trail in July 2023, a one-mile, compacted-surface path that provides a viewpoint of North Falls without the steep canyon stairs.