Silver Falls State Park

Last weekend we spent 2 nights in a lovely little cabin at Silver Falls State Park. The cabin was in the woods, surrounded by tall trees, trillium, ferns and salmonberry. We took two hikes, one on Friday afternoon when we arrived and one on Saturday, along the river and over and under the waterfalls. Here are some photos of our hikes and of the things we saw.
These were the first hikes we took with our new walking poles from REI. They came in very handy, especially on our hike around the waterfalls. We'll take them on all our hikes from now on, we think.
We did not see many birds, although we did see a winter wren. We heard a lot of bird calls and song, but the trees and shrubs were so thick, we couldn't see them. We did see a family of deer, one of which is pictured here.
The salmonberry was everywhere, but we also saw camas, white and pink fawn lilies, yellow stream violets, oxalis and Scouler's Corydalis - a first for us. I had to thumb through the plant book, only to find it on the same page as Pacific Bleeding Heart, whose leaves it somewhat resembles. There was a lot of bleeding heart, too, but the flowers are totally different. We were glad to have figured it out!






These were the first hikes we took our new walking poles from REI on. They came in extremely handy and we'll use them again, especially next time we go to Lake Billy Chinook!