Leon Turnbull Photography

On the second morning of our Oregon camping trip, I woke the rest of the family to go hiking. Much to their chagrin. I’m sure they would rather sleep in then get up so darn awful early. But I wanted them all to at least see some waterfalls with me, especially this one: Munson Creek Falls.

At 319 feet high, Munson Creek Falls is the tallest waterfall in the Oregon coast range. We arrived at the trailhead very early in the morning, which as it turns out was not all that necessary. The fog was a nice touch of surprise. Don’t tell my family I did not have to get them up so early. No one was up and around except the mosquitoes. I gathered up the troops at the trailhead and we set off quickly to the falls in hopes that the mosquitoes would not follow us to the waterfall. It seemed to work. The mosquitoes did not seem to be biting when we arrived at the waterfall viewpoint. This allowed me to take some time to photograph it. Unfortunately there is not much of a viewpoint, as there is a lot of tree branches and logs in the way, and it is not possible to get any closer to the waterfall. It is still a magnificent cascade.

Clarence Creek Falls was my next stop after Alder Glen Falls. When you get to the top of the falls along the road, it is quickly seen there is no way to view the waterfall. Except for some craziness, that is. It would be nice if there was a good view from the road. Especially when you consider that the Forest Service has a nice road sign along the highway telling unsuspecting visitors to come see Clarence Creek Falls just a mile up the dirt road off the highway. Then they get up there expecting to see a nice waterfall, but no-siree-Bob. No luck for them.

So that is where the craziness begins for certain people. Not those unsuspecting visitors. But people like myself who know beforehand what to expect here. Yet even for me, I made it much tougher on myself than need be. Walking back from the turnout down the road, looking for a way down the steep slope to the bottom of the waterfall. I somehow missed the proper path down. Continuing further down the road, I see a route that looked do-able. Not as steep. But it was pretty much a nightmare. The route consisted of a big hack through stinging nettles, the ground was very crumbly and unstable with hidden holes, and pretty steep as well. I had to be extremely careful, and more than once considered giving up. There was no path, it seemed as though no one had been down here before. This did not really make sense. I was sure that others certainly would have been down here before. I persevered, however, and after far too much effort, I made it to the waterfall.

It is a pretty nice waterfall, 45 ft. high, but difficult to photograph. This straight on angle was pretty much the only option. When I went to go back up to the top, I certainly did not want to go back the same way I came down. Lo and behold, I found a different path going up to the top, which was much more traveled, and much much easier than whacking through those stinging nettles over unstable ground. I completely missed seeing this path on the way down, and I don’t know how because it was fairly obvious from the road. Sigh.

I just made a quick stop here at Alder Glen Falls. I thought long and hard about crossing the river to get up close to it. It looked like it would not have been hard to do that, though it was probably a lot deeper than it seemed, but I decided to just take a shot from this side and go on. I still had more waterfalls I wanted to see this morning. Time was of the essence.

We arrived in Tillamook in good time. The weather was extremely pleasant. Indeed, the beach was on the chilly side. I actually wanted my jacket. My wife thought I was lame to want my jacket, but I was cold while we sat on the beach and watched our kids play. She is convinced that I must be from Mexico, not Canada, because I am always so cold. Meanwhile, it was 110 degrees back in northern California. Ha! (sorry).

After play time on the beach, we got to the campground and started to put up the tent. Our tent is a large and complicated affair, and we had a devil of a time putting on the fly. Well, forget the stupid fly anyway. There was no rain in the forecast. So I started to make dinner, then realized I forgot the hot dogs back at home. Doh! Tara even left me a big note on the fridge of what I needed to bring, and hot dogs was the first thing on the list. Double Doh! Plan B was spaghetti so let’s do that instead. That is when the valve on the propane canister broke, filling up the immediate vicinity with propane smell. Geepers, that has never happened before. Triple doh! Time to get new camping cookware, I think. Fortunately, I had a backup canister and it did not break, so I was able to muster up some spaghetti for everyone to eat.

The next morning I got up bright and early to go find some waterfalls. The rest of the family was not much into getting up at the crack of dawn, so I left them all sleeping. My first stop was Niagara Falls (pictured here) and Pheasant Creek Falls. It was extremely humid and muggy but the hike is very easy, and fortunately the mosquitoes were still sleeping. These two waterfalls are side by side and both of them are about 115 ft. high, but there has been a lot of confusion about which of the two is the one called Niagara. After much investigation and consternation, I do believe that this one is called Niagara Falls, and the other is Pheasant Creek Falls, even though this is the one that is on Pheasant Creek. Confused? I am still not really convinced, but whatever the name, I was quite disappointed in the flow of these two waterfalls. I was really expecting a lot more umph out of them because the area had seen quite a bit of rain this spring, and yet these two were barely on the flow-o-meter. Nonetheless, it is certainly a beautiful waterfall, a marvelous plunge of 115 ft.

I spent a bit more time here than I wanted to, but eventually retreated back to the car, and then on to see a couple more waterfalls before heading back. As I drove back to the campground, I got a text from my wife saying that it was raining there! There was no rain where I was, but apparently it was spitting big time at the campground. It was all that dang humidity. We should have put on that stupid fly after all, an error that I rectified when I got back. Things got a wee bit on the wet side in the tent that morning.

This is the lower Butte Creek Falls, and it is 71 ft. high. It is a pretty one. It has a very charming horsetail shape. Just like the upper waterfall, it is very easy to get to, and just like the upper falls, I did not spend much time here, as I was wanting to get to Abiqua Falls as quickly as I could. Not a bad morning though, three pretty waterfalls all before the sun came up too high.