We had spent our second night of the drive to Seattle in Salem, OR, and the temps outside were below freezing as we left our hotel. The skies were sunny but there were many patches of low, dense fog in the area that reminded us of the tule fog back home. We had looked at several hiking options for the day, including securing a permit to visit Multnomah Falls east of Portland, but the weather forecast there was for freezing drizzle which didn’t sound very appealing. We chose instead to visit Silver Falls State Park, which we’d not heard of before, but it popped up as highly recommended when we searched the web – we were not disappointed in the least. Located in the foothills some 15 miles east of Salem, it took the better part of an hour to make the drive to the park’s main visitor center where we arrived about 10:00am. The plan was to hike all or part of the Ten Falls trail, which would lead us eastward over an intervening ridge to North Falls at the head of a west-trending canyon, through which runs the North Fork of Silver Creek. From North Falls, we’d follow the creek down the canyon, passing numerous waterfalls en route to a junction with the creek’s South Fork, where we’d turn south up another canyon and pass several more falls before climbing out at the visitor center. The full loop would be something around 8 miles, and we gave ourselves advance permission to bail out halfway down the North Fork if necessary, which would cut 2-3 miles out of the loop. It was 10:30 by the time we were ready to head out (after a fruitless search of all the Explorer’s nooks and crannies for Chris’ trekking poles, which he’d discovered missing at this point), and it was just barely 32 degrees. We first headed eastward up a long but moderate slope through some of the lushest forest we’ve ever seen, eventually dropping back toward the North Fork canyon after half a mile. Here, we followed along the canyon’s south rim, soon catching glimpses of North Falls to the east. We found the junction with the canyon trail just east of the top of the falls, and we were surprised when we found ourselves walking not below the falls but behind them through a deep undercut in the rock. Emerging now on the north side of the creek, we followed it west for the ensuing three miles, past a series of low cascades and bypassing our bailout point at Winter Creek. About a mile east of the South Fork junction, we crossed a bridge over to the creek’s south bank, and we made the turn up the east bank of the South Fork into bright midday sun (as well as crowds of people, now that we were much closer to the visitor center). We came to Lower South Falls, passing behind it just like North Falls, and we repeated that process at South Falls at the head of South Fork canyon. The South Fork falls were quite a bit mistier that the North Fork ones, so much so that some of Chris’ photos look a little blurry from the film of water droplets coating his lens filter. We exited the canyon as planned at South Falls, happy to be out of the crowds and into the (now) warmer sunlight. A check of the GPS revealed very mixed results – Jane’s Apple watch logged some 8-1/2 miles while Chris’ Gaia track was 7.85 miles, but the track was mapped way off route and wildly exaggerated the elevation change. We think the real mileage was closer to 7 miles with about 1,700′ of total gain. This was a truly beautiful place, even in the middle of winter, and we can imagine what it would be like in the height of spring water flows and blooms. Definitely recommended.