Golden And Silver Falls State Natural Area — Attraction in North Bend

Two beautiful waterfalls outside of Coos Bay. It's a bit of a drive, but the road is pretty scenic, and of course the waterfalls are spectacular. From the parking area, each falls is about a 15-20 minute walk, less than half a mile to each. To get close to Golden Falls, it does involve some very minor scrambling, and a climb up a steep, muddy slope. When we were there, a rope with knots tied it it was affixed to a large tree to assist climbing up the steep slope. It was fairly dry at the time, but still slippery, I'm sure if it was wet, the rope would really come in handy to aid climbing up the slick muddy slope. Also the rocks are extremely slippery, due to constant water spray and smooth surfaces. Use caution when hopping between boulders.

Silver Falls is a bit easier to access, the trail is very flat and doesn't require as much effort to get close. There's also a cool little trail that winds down and between huge boulders and pops out near the outlet stream from the falls, which also has some cascades. A downed tree is the perfect spot to sit and relax and listen to the sounds of the falls and babbling stream. We spent a good hour at this falls, just relaxing in the shaded, cool area by the stream. Not a lot of visitors the day we went, but I'm sure in the heart of summer on a weekend it might be a bit more crowded. The long drive keeps the numbers down a bit though. Oregon has some amazing waterfalls, these are two...

After reading reviews, we were hesitant to take the drive to these falls. There was mention of 8 miles of gravel road with potholes that leads to the trail heads. But go we did. Turns out it is 5 miles of gravel road with the aforementioned potholes. Very slow going and dusty. It took over an hour to drive from Coos Bay. Which would have been okay if the falls were overly impressive which unfortunately they weren’t. It has been very dry so there was very little water in the falls. There are massive rocks that the falls trickle over. If you want to get a little closer to the falls you will need to climb over fallen rocks. The trails need maintenance as the brush is intruding and parts of the trail are crumbling away. The area has a jungle like feeling with all the trees, ferns and other greenery. There are three trails. One to Silver Falls, one to the bottom of Golden Falls, and one closer to the tops of the falls. We hiked all three and it took about 1 ½ hours. There are restrooms at the trail head, and an information stand. Personally, I would skip it unless the falls were full of water. Not worth getting the car dirty and challenging...

I loved the park and the actual falls, however Google maps tells you to take kuse rd and turn onto weyerhauser rd which is actually gated off aboit 5 or 6 miles before you reach your destination. Instead you should stay straight, but beware the road you have to take to get to this place is gravel and bumpy towards the end with tight twisting corners. Once you get to the park you can go left for silver falls, which is a very short walk or right for the 2 golden falls trails. The golden falls trails split after the little bridge; the right trail is the lower trail and the left is the upper trail. I only chose the lower trail for this quick visit and you can't get close to the falls very easy without climbing over very large boulders, but it looked as if the upper trail lead to a good, close viewpoint. Both falls are much smaller right now due to the dry spell and the time if year, but you can tell that they would be magnificent earlier in the year or after a wetter winter. This may make the rd a bit more dangerous to drive though. Overall it was still a beautiful hike and I thought it was...