17 min
Overview
Silver Falls is Oregon’s largest state park at 9,200 acres and, it should be emphasized, offers more to the hiker than the popular and crowded canyon hikes to the waterfalls. The southern and eastern area of the park is a forested backcountry with a network of trails for hikers, bikers, and horses leading along mostly gentle slopes. This short loop skirts the edge of this backcountry as it winds above the salmonberry-choked bottomlands of Howard and Smith Creeks. An outstanding feature of the hike are the huge, ancient Douglas-firs you will encounter on both legs of the loop in this lush remnant of native streamside forest. You can also walk here from the South Falls Trailhead and do this as an add-on to a waterfall hike. 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. Here drop down to your right through a salmonberry thicket to cross Howard Creek. Then head up on a steep, gravel path to the Howard Creek-Buck Mountain Trail South Junction. Keep right here, and descend in a luxuriant forest of moss-draped Douglas-fir and western hemlock. You’ll reach the edge of the swampy Howard Creek bottomland, a dense expanse of salmonberry shaded by red alder and big-leaf maple. The trail undulates along the bottom of the slope, occasionally offering glimpses of the creek itself. Pass the two-mile marker as you alternate copses of vine maple with some massive Douglas-firs. Cross a couple of small creeks; in between them, there’s another imposing, straight-trunke
Trail Stats
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85 m
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