Hiking

An easy loop visits Canyon Creek's lower meadow, full of wildflowers. For even better views, energetic hikers can continue to an upper meadow and a viewpoint beneath Three Fingered Jack's summit pinnacles.

Discover a canyon full of waterfalls in the Columbia Gorge.

About the Hike: The Eagle Creek Trail is one of Oregon's most spectacular paths, passing half a dozen major waterfalls. The trail is also an engineering marvel. To maintain an easy grade through this rugged canyon, the builders blasted ledges out of sheer cliffs, bridged a colossal gorge and even chipped a tunnel through solid rock behind 120-foot Tunnel Falls.

Starting from the historic Crater Lake Lodge, this path climbs along the rim of a gigantic collapsed volcano, now filled with a stunningly blue, 6-mile-wide lake.

This gold mining town is more than just a living museum; it's an active cultural center with art galleries, a first-rate summer music festival, and miles of hiking trails through recently-acquired parklands.

Oregon's second tallest mountain rises like a wall from the lake-dotted wildflower meadows of Jefferson Park. The view of Mount Jefferson is so impressive and the meadows are so delightful to explore that the area is crowded in summer - so why not wait to go until September?

The Metolius, most magical of all Oregon rivers, emerges fully grown at 50,000 gallons a minute from the arid base of Black Butte. Sample the river's wizardry with this easy hike along a section of the oasis-like riverbank. The trail passes sudden springs and reveals colorful bird life.

Start at 100-foot-tall Sahalie Falls, a raging cataract that pounds the river into rainbowed mist. Then the route descends past 70-foot Koosah Falls and returns along the river's far shore on the McKenzie River Trail.

Breakers crash against the tilted sandstone cliffs of Shore Acres State Park. Sea lions bark from offshore reefs. Wavelets lap the beaches of hidden coves. If this seems an unlikely backdrop for a formal English garden, welcome to the surprises of Shore Acres. Easy trails explore the gardens and coastline, but note that dogs are not allowed outside of cars in Shore Acres State Park.

The popular trail through Silver Falls State Park's forested canyons visits 10 spectacular waterfalls, five more than 100 feet high. The path even leads through mossy caverns behind the falls' shimmering silver curtains.This loop is suitable for families with beginning hikers because side trails provide shortcuts back to the car. Dogs are not allowed on the trail.

Smith Rock juts from the Central Oregon lava plains like an orange-sailed ship in the desert. Oregon's most popular rock-climbing area, this state park challenges mountaineers with 3 miles of rhyolite cliffs and Monkey Face, a 350-foot-tall natural sculpture.