Sweet Creek Falls
I've wanted to hike the Sweet Creek Falls area for several years. It was on our plans for the 2019 trip, but it got rained out, and we didn't want to give up our good weather the remaining days around Sunset Bay. We set aside today as THE day for Sweet Creek Falls. And then the comedy of errors began. First, I didn't have the route for the trip beginning in Sunset Bay because when I originally planned the trip we were leaving from Lincoln City. I quickly made the correction and saved the route to our GPS. When we were all packed and ready to go, I couldn't find my cell phone. We looked everywhere...until I found it in my shirt pocket under my fleece. Yikes! I rarely have shirt pockets when hiking, so I looked everywhere else. We double-checked that we had everything and set off for Sweet Creek.
We drove north toward Florence and the Suislaw River. When we reached Reedsport and the Umpqua River, our GPS suddenly wanted us to drive east along the river. After 8 miles, it wanted us to drive up a private, unpaved road. I don't know what shortcut it thought we should take through the mountains, but we turned around and drove back to Reedsport and switched to our iPhone GPS to get us to "Sweet Creek Falls Trailhead."
We couldn't find a place to park in the main Homestead Trailhead, so we continued up the road to the next parking area which was almost empty. The trail was well-defined, but rough as it led us upstream. In Google Earth, I didn't realize the trail would be above the stream most of the way. When we reached the fall, we had to drop down over huge, moss-covered boulders to reach the stream edge. On previous trips, it wouldn't have been much of a challenge. But at our age, we had to be very careful. We didn't even try to get to some of the best shooting vantage points. In the end, the falls weren't all that special, and the water level was pretty low. We discovered that Sweet Creek Falls was really a series of small cascades through a wooded valley. We've been spoiled with the spectacular falls we've photographed in the Sierras, Cascades, and Rockies. This was a major disappointment. It was the best example of me researching a location and then having it be a waste of time. I'm glad this doesn't happen very often.
We stopped at Clearvox Lake to check out the Oregon Dunes on the way back south, but the area was crowded with people spending "the day at the beach." We walked around for a few minutes, but nothing drew us to explore it more.
When we finally returned to Coos Bay, we stopped at Dairy Queen to drown our sorrows. It was the only Dairy Queen in Oregon we've seen that had indoor dining. All the others have required using the Drive Thru because of staffing issues.
By the time we got back to the motorhome, we were beat. We had dinner and watched a movie. Tonight, we had almost no images to process.
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