#dontfallpumpkin! {Winter Falls}

My beautiful friend Pumpkin (Rebecca...whatever name suits you) and I have been talking about doing a hike together for a few months now, so a very brisk morning we went out to Silver Falls State Park.  We left especially early (8am) since I had some other things going on that afternoon. It was quite cold and icy.  When we got out of the car at the park it was 28 degrees.

As we trekked down the normal route behind South Falls, we came to the pavement portion.  Quickly we realized how the entire slab of pavement was pure ice.  Rerouting we turned around and went the way of the Maple Ridge trail instead. And the rest of the trail was relatively normal, still a little slick in areas though. Which coined our theme for the hike, "Don't fall pumpkin!" The most hilarious part though was when we turned around to reroute, there was a lone man hiker just behind us. As we passed him, we let him know how icy it was and that he may want to take the route we were taking.  He said thank you, and continued on where he was headed.  We turned around and he was crab walking, eh. more like sliding, down the hill, then flipped around on all fours face down, all in an effort to get down this hill. We were dying of laughter.

It was such a joy to spend time with Pumpkin and talk about our lives and our common camp lives and just enjoy the landscape.  As cold as it was, it was thoroughly enjoyable.

• Date of hike: November 15th, 2014
• Distance: 5 Miles (roundtrip)

• Elevation gain: 670 feet 

• Difficulty: Easy
• Miles thus far: 197/200 miles this year

 Winter Falls

 Pumpkin and I at Lower North Falls

 Pumpkin and I at Lower North Falls

 Lower North Falls

Eagle Creek to Punchbowl Falls

Hiking in the fall is incredible. The fall leaves just color the landscape really making you feel as if you are Mary Poppins and just jumped into a painting.  Last weekend I had planned on going up Eagle Creek up to high bridge with my step-dad, but he hurt his back, again. I always plan to go regardless if someone is coming, but my mom asked if she could come, but we'd need to modify the hike to be shorter.  So I shortened it to just go to Punchbowl Falls.  I have been wanting to go up the Eagle Creek for some time and it proved to be just as beautiful as I imagined. I cannot wait to go back and explore further up this incredible section of the Columbia River Gorge.

The hike went almost exactly as planned, but as tradition seems to be, theres always one hitch.  We got almost to Punchbowl Falls when we came to an intersection, where one trail said Punchbowl Falls, or so we thought, and the other kept going.  Apparently, the other went to lower Punchbowl Falls. So we hiked all the way down to the creek, saw a measly little lower Punchbowl Falls, but could not see the real thing from where we were. So we had to climb back up to the other trail and go further a quarter of a mile to have an overlooking view of upper Punchbowl Falls. Like I told my mother, even if it didn't seem worth it to climb down and back up, our butts will thank us for it later! ha!

• Date of hike: November 8th, 2014
• Distance: 4 Miles (out and back)

• Elevation gain: 500 feet 

• Difficulty: Easy
• Miles thus far: 192/200 miles this year

The sun beautifully piercing through the clearing fog onto Eagle Creek

My mother looked like such a badass climbing up this hill. Had to snap a photo so she would believe it.

 Lower Punchbowl Falls area

 Punchbowl Falls Overlook

Mom and I above Punchbowl Falls. Thanks for hiking with me mama!