Silver Falls State Park

We’ve stayed at this park a couple times now and we really like it. Campsites are level have power and water and in the spring seem to be reasonably available. Bathrooms are clean and nice.

On most recent trip, we believe that our credit card may have been scammed on the auto pay kiosk, not 100% sure but it seems like the most likely way that our car number was Ollen and charged $14,000 of items at Walmart. So, just be careful. Otherwise it’s one of our favorite parks.

Was nice to stay here the night before hiking Ten Falls. We didnt have a reservation but there were a few one night only RV spots still available so we snagged one. Check out was at 1pm but we left to park at the Silver Falls parking lot at 8am to make sure we got a spot. Glad we did cause by the time we finished the hike the whole lot was filled!

Note: RV camping is $28 for Oregon residents and $36 for non residents

This place is quite a gem. Good hiking and camping. The tent area was noisy for us but moved to the RV loop and it was much quieter. Hosts are great and helped us great a second night before heading the Mount Hood and beyond. We’ve been boondocking so having some electric to charge up batteries is necessary sometimes. Tent area is very shaded. What you’d expect for mid-summer camping. Lots of kids, families and excitement to be in the woods. Lots of day use from the surrounding cities.

Silver Falls State Park is known as the “crown jewel” of the Oregon State Park system and it’s easy to see why. Located about 65 miles south of Portland and 20 miles east of Salem, the park, including the campground, is a forested, mossy, waterfall wonderland that is meticulously maintained. It’s the largest state park in Oregon and has more than 24 miles of walking/hiking trails, 14 miles of horse trails, and a 4-mile bike path. When we stayed in early November, we were able to still enjoy the fall colors, but it was very damp and rained pretty regularly. Regardless, this park definitely finds itself towards the top of our favorite state parks list.

Our campsite was an extremely long (83 feet) back-in site with an electric and water hookup. The sites are paved, which is great with all the rain the area receives. In addition to the RV sites, there are also tent sites, group sites, horse camp sites, and cabins. We stayed fairly late into the season when the campground wasn’t very busy, so it was peaceful and quiet. A handful of deer seem to call the campground home as we saw a few wandering about every day. I popped into the restrooms to check them out and they were super clean, which is impressive considering all of the rain and pine needles that must get tracked in but there was no trace of. The showers are individual shower rooms and were equally as clean. We used a vault toilet at the North Falls trailhead and even that was super clean – like, the cleanest vault toilet I’ve ever seen. The campground also has a playground and firewood for sale.

The main draw to Silver Falls is the abundance of waterfalls, ten of which you can enjoy if you traverse the Trail of Ten Falls. I’ve seen the length of this trail posted as both 7.2 miles and 8.7 miles, and seeing as we only did bits and pieces of the trail, I’m not sure which is more accurate. There are also other multiple shorter loops and out and back trails that lead to some of the falls, so it is definitely not necessary to do the entire Trail of Ten Falls in order to enjoy this park.

There's a cafe and gift shop in the South Falls area of the park.

Cell service was great on both AT&T and Verizon. We had no issues being able to work or streaming TV.
AT&T: 122 Mbps down/10.3 Mbps up
Verizon: 77 Mbps down/9.95 Mbps up

If you are really fit and don’t mind a squeeze on trail up and down hills you will like it. Otherwise, you are going just for the camping. Don’t get a spot under leafy trees in Fall, there are orange fruits dropping all over your camp or Rv. On everything. Some spots are muddy needing more rock. Mud between RV pad and fire pit. Dump 2 miles from camp. ATT worked but another provider didn’t. Trails say mask but most people don’t. If you like waterfalls and hiking and don’t mind conditions go.