Looking for a place to play with the new camera I decided to head out to a trio of beautiful waterfalls which lie southeast of the town of Scotts Mills. I got the inspiration to explore Abiqua Falls from Greg Lief's nice gallery of Abiqua photos as well as this recent trip report from Aridd. The hike is covered nicely by justpeachy in the Field Guide, and is also detailed in Doug Lorain's book and in William Sullivan's third edition NW Oregon guidebook.
As is mentioned in the field guide the trailhead is not signed and is a little tricky to find at first. If you find yourself wandering along an old logging road you're not going the right way! The foot trail is there though, and while it is steep in places it's really not too bad getting down to the creek.
In short order my dog Kirah and I were standing on the banks of beautiful Abiqua Creek...
(Note to self: next time bring the fishing pole!)
It's only about a third of a mile from here upstream to the falls but since it had rained here earlier in the day I found the going to be a bit challenging in places. Lots of mud and slick spots and plenty of large blowdown to contend with in the steep and wet terrain. This made the .3 miles quite the workout! Of course having to heft my 90 lb dog over a couple of slippery downed trees didn't help either. But persistence paid off and after a half hour or so we arrived at the thundering Abiqua Falls...
After taking some photos I found a nice rock, sat down, had some lunch and then just lingered here for another half hour or so enjoying the cool breezes and wonderful ambiance of the place.
Back at the car there was still plenty of day left for exploring so I made the quick trip over to see Butte Creek Falls which is just a few miles away.
And here we find an officail trailhead complete with pit toilet...
Unlike Abiqua, the short trail system here at Butte Creek is well built and well maintained. In about 15 minutes we were down at the impressive 80 foot lower falls which twists through an odd shaped chute in the basalt...
And on the way back we took the little side trip down to the 20 foot upper falls. This one drops off a basalt ledge with a cavern behind the falls...
You can walk behind the falls...
I saw one young couple here at Butte Creek and a family of four at Abiqua on their way out as I headed in. Hey I saw more Water Ouzels than that today!
Great day.
Gordon
"I should never have switched from Scotch to Martinis."