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.

I think I actually found a road that is worse than Bowman Lake Road. I know, I know, it is hard to believe, and I hate to admit it really, but yeah it does exist. Have you ever driven the road to Fordyce Lake? Well, just don’t, ok. Trust the waterfall guy.

I had never been up to Fordyce Lake before, though I have hiked Fordyce Creek from the bottom, but not all the way up to the lake. It is something like 10 miles one way, so it would be a tad crazy to go all that way to the lake in one day. I am crazy though, but not to do that hike. This week, the powers that be pumped up the volume from the Fordyce Lake dam. It was spitting out at 440 cubic feet per second, which is quite high and rather odd considering it is a drought year. I watched the gauge like a hawk all week long, and I was certain the tap would be shut off before the weekend. Please stay on, please stay on. Friday finally rolled around, and the dam was still cranking out the water. Sweet news!

After work I made the drive up I-80 to Cisco Grove and bounced onto the dirt road going to Fordyce Lake. It is 7 miles to the lake, and the road starts off bumpy and just gets worse from there. It is also a popular road. There was a heckuva lot of traffic on this crazy road, and they all seemed to be zipping up the road at outrageous speeds (ie. much faster than me). I even saw regular cars driving up the road. They weren’t zipping mind you, but it is definitely outrageous to drive up this road in a small car. About a mile before the lake, the road starts going downhill, and gets much worse. Monster ruts. Big rocks. As I started driving down, I realized this was going to be bad. At that point, I did not think I could back up the hill, and I certainly could not turn around. I thought maybe I could go on, and it seemed I had no choice. Big mistake. Within moments, I bottomed out the SUV. I was stuck, and stuck good. I could not go backwards now, that is for sure. There was no one else around. What happened to all that traffic I saw? Where did they all go? Were their little cars swallowed up in one of the ruts? For awhile, I was thinking I might be stuck there all night. Well, it was not too long before some guys in a big truck came up the road from the lake below. They were able to push me out of the rut and once out, I backed up the hill to the top without difficulty and parked. Whew! I realized later that it is actually a good thing I got stuck where I did. If I had managed to get down to the bottom of the road, there is absolutely no way I would have been able to drive back up later that night (when no one would be around to help). Even some trucks I saw afterwards were having troubles going up this hill, including the guys who helped me. I think sometimes God helps us out even in our stupidity, and this was certainly one of those times for me.

Anyway, it was now much later than I anticipated and I still had to walk a mile to the lake. I had grand plans of hiking down the creek quite a distance from the dam but it was too late for that now. I decided on just going to the first waterfall on the creek, Eraserhead Falls, which is the main one I wanted to see anyway. I cut off the main road onto a OHV trail which went down to the creek near the waterfall. There were jeepers down there at the bottom playing around on the big ruts and big rocks. Unfortunately for me, they were right near the waterfall. So my peace and quiet at the falls was ruined by the sounds of the jeepers. They weren’t doing anything wrong, it is an official OHV trail, but it is just a bummer they had to be right there where I wanted to be and at that time. Go home people, this is my waterfall.

Well actually, it is not much of a waterfall to be precise about the matter. It is more of a rapid than a waterfall, and although it may look not too shabby in this photo, it is actually a pretty shallow descent, and not all that impressive. It is a long rapid for sure, but only 20 feet in actual height. I suppose it is the biggest falls on this creek though, the others are all well under 20 ft high. Anyway, I would really like to tell you that I will never ever drive that road again up to Fordyce Lake. It was a nightmare and a half. However … I discovered a new waterfall while I was here, and although it was not flowing much, it is a big one, and I definitely will need to come back here in the spring sometime to see it when it is gushing. So brave the road again, I will.

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.