I love hiking in the PNW! I can feel like I am deep in the forest, or in rainforest with bright blue waters, and even in a high desert! I feel like no mater how many hikes I go on I will also never run out of places to go hike. We have our regular hikes that are close by we do on the regular. We love to hike Spencer’s butte and Skinner’s Butte, we haven’t spent much time exploring Mount Pisgah but we definitely want to. I am also making a hiking bucket list for the area.
My current (small) hiking bucket list for the PNW includes:
-Silver Falls
-Crater lake
-Drift Creek Falls
-Painted Hills
Please send me more suggestions to make my list bigger.
Hiking McDowell Creek Falls
I found McDowell Creek Falls in a hiking group I am in on Facebook. This groups has given me so many ideas of places to go in Oregon I highly recommend finding hiking groups in your local area. What really drew me to this hike was the unique wooden bridges, paths and stairways. On Mother’s Day my husband asked what I wanted to do and I knew exactly!! Go to this beautiful hike and see the waterfalls. McDowell Creek Falls Park actually has 4 separate waterfalls to see. We only went to see two of them when we went.
The drive was a little over an hour from Eugene. McDowell Creek Falls park is located near Sweet Home, Oregon. The drive was beautiful and green! Not many stops along the way but Sweet Home and Brownsville are both adorable country towns.
Once we arrived we parked in the second turn off, we started our hike. The hikes to the falls are short and are kids were able to walk. We did bring the hiking pack for our toddler but we barely used it, he was able to do most of the hiking himself. the first falls we went to were called Royal Terrace Falls. Perfectly named there were three tiers to the falls and you can hike all to all of them! There is also a beautiful wooden bridge right across the front.
The second falls we went to Mystic Falls were called see were up the road a little and across the road. FYI the signs are a little misleading and and got us a little lost. But this one was BREATHTAKING! These were the falls that I had initially seen on the Facebook group that attracted me to this hike. I was obsessed with the wooden bridges and staircases and thought we could get some amazing photos here!
This hike was memorable and easy for the whole family. The views and gorgeous and a great place for photo ops. If you are ever in the area or driving down I-5 make the stop at McDowell Creek Falls Park. I give this hike 10/10!
