Young's River Falls

Today was one those days when it drizzled and rained and was so gray that a person could easily have slept the day away, or whiled away the day on the couch. Having tried both of those things and being bored to death, about 2:30 we decided that we needed to leave the house and do SOMETHING, anything!

I wanted to go to Rain Tree Nursery (now 7 Dees) to look for lettuce starts and onion starts. Of course, they had neither. But we found a beautiful rose bush and some little fushias for my hanging pot at home. Not really wanting to go home yet, I suggested that we try another nursery up on Old Young's Bay Road. Mike mentioned that he'd seen Hood Strawberries for sale near Warrenton. We bought a 1/2 flat of strawberries and drove to the nursey to find it closed.......and, possibly, out of business. As I made a u-turn in the road, Mike said "Oh, I guess we could go to Young's River Falls one day." Young's River Falls?? Is it on this road? Let's go. Another u-turn and we were on the way.

What a lovely drive through forest, farms and cattle ranches; even some sheep thrown in for good measure. After many turns and a really, really old concrete road obviously made for Model-Ts, we came, literally, to the end of the road. I'm not sure what, exactly, I had expected of these falls, but what I saw was not it. Wow! A beautiful, remote setting and a large, roaring falls. I'm sure the magnitude of the falls has a lot to do with the fact that it hasn't stopped rained here since last October, but it is very beautiful. We managed to hike down to the bottom without sliding
too badly on the wet rocks. The falls were roaring and it was very misty. Mike says this is a favorite swimming hole for the locals in the summer and not a really cool place to be if you are not a "local" with a lot of beer. But today no one else was there. What a beautiful place.

We stayed a little while as I took pictures and nearly sat on a large banana slug to have my picture taken. Yuk! But I avoided the slug and we had a wonderful respite from the boredom of yet another gray Oregon day. On the way back around the loop we came to the little town of Olney. I suddenly realized that I was exactly where the Hood to Coast Relay runs. What a revelation! And I had no idea that there was something as beautiful and hidden as those falls so close by. Perhaps after the HTC this year I could show the falls to my son and daughter in law. We'll have to take some beer of course!