1.0 hr
Overview
Silver Falls, Oregon’s largest state park at 9,200 acres, has an expansive backcountry with a network of trails for hikers, bikers, and horses leading along mostly gentle slopes. This is a good area to explore in the winter months, when it's hard to find hikes of some distance that are free of snow. There is some impressive old growth in the area of Howard Creek; the higher slopes are composed of secondary woodland and the trails mostly follow old logging roads, but this is a quiet space through which bears and cougars roam although you have little chance of encountering one. The trail sign is to the right of the information kiosk, which displays a large map of the park. Follow the trail in under tall Douglas-firs and past a watering trough. Reach the gravel entrance road to the horse camp, and go left. At a sign for the Buck Mountain and Howard Creek Loops, bear right and parallel a gravel track under stately Douglas-firs. Keep straight at another trail sign, and follow the gravel road track through a lush green carpet of sword fern, salmonberry, and salal. At the next junction, keep right and descend past a huge Douglas-fir to the Howard Creek-Buck Mountain Trail North Junction. Go left here to head up the slope on a wide track. The Buck Mountain Trail loops up and then drops; you’ll see a short connector leading left which cuts off this meander in the trail. After this, reach a junction with a fire road which connects to the Rackett Ridge Trail. Turn right here and rise in mossy woods of hemlock and Douglas-fir where you can admire more large old growth. Pass the one-mile marker in secondary forest just before the track dips to a shallow saddle and then bends to the left. Drop again and, where the trail levels, keep right at a junction with a fire road that leads down to the Silver Creek Youth Camp. Continue along a broad ridge crest in mostly 100-year woods with some large hemlocks and Douglas-firs standing out. Ascend gradually in previously logged forest to the four-way Buck Mountain-Perimeter Trail Ju
Trail Stats
0.0 km
301 m
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