Tumalo Falls – Oregon

August 17th, 2019

Deschutes National Forest

After leaving Crater Lake NP, I drove two hours directly to Bend, OR. My thought was to find a campground. I call my friend Jennifer who is a well versed backpacker and local in the area. She suggested Deschutes NF, and provided brief directions.

I wound up finding it, and got a campsite. The night ended up being a bit rougher than what I wanted. I was forewarned of the coyote activity by other campers, and sure enough they were present. I ended up sleeping in my car for the third time this trip. This time it was for their safety. Ha!

I awoke at the first sign of light. I get my things together, and leave the campground around 8am. After a quick car wash, and brief stop at Walmart, I had met up with Jennifer for breakfast. We went to Big O Bagels. I highly recommend it.

We grabbed our food, and set out on our short venture over to Tumalo Falls Trailhead.

We arrive, and take note of the hundreds of cars lining the road. Surely, this was a hot spot in the area.

We park, grab our gear, and set out on this hike that Jennifer had planned for the day. We immediately see this 97 foot waterfall.

She had mentioned that she was on this trail recently, but didn’t make it as far as she wanted. As luck would have it, I am one who goes the distance on every hike. Ha!

We make our way up to the falls and see these amazing views.

After soaking in those spectacular views, we head up the trail further. We come across waterfall after waterfall. It was absolutely mind blowing.

As we made our way up this utterly amazing trail, a couple and their lab were playing. They would toss a rock into the water, and he would dive and try to find it. A pure bred champion.

Further up the trail we came to a mesmerizing waterfall…

We then came to another most amazing waterfall… as if they couldn’t get any bigger or better. Simply gigantic! No trail has ever yielded this many large mountain waterfalls in my short career.

No sooner than I had those thoughts, We head up the trail further and suddenly hear “it”. We then see “it” through the forest. “It” being the biggest and most overwhelming waterfall yet. I referred to it as the Mothership.

This beast was roaring with water… and you guessed it, these photos don’t do it justice. None. Unfortunately, this website hosting service won’t permit video footage. Otherwise, you would get a much better idea of the shock and awe Jennifer and I shared.

We took a break here, then continued up the trail.

Our last stop on this trail is named Happy Valley. The flowers had various colors: yellow, orange, purple, red, and blue.

At last, we had made it to Happy Valley. From here, as seen above, it is 4 miles back. Being that we had thoroughly enjoyed the hike up, taking hundreds of photos and videos, we had decided to kick it in high gear and turbo hike the way down.

1 hour later, we made it.

What a hike that was… one of the best ever. Thank you Jennifer!

Miles: 8.8 Time: 3 hours 38 minutes moving Elevation gain: 1,276 feet