If you spend enough time in the Oregon outdoors, you realize that when it comes to winter weather, luck is a good partner to have by your side. So it was on a recent streamside stroll into a watershed where the rain is often measured in feet – not inches but where huge surprises waited at the end of the trail.
Drift Creek will carry you away — perhaps where imagination travels—on a wonderful trail alongside a classic “pool and drop” Oregon stream. Flanked by ferns, alder trees and vine maple, Drift Creek Trail winds through the rain-drenched Siuslaw National Forest.
The Drift Creek Trail is amazing until you arrive at something even better and bigger that will take your breath away: a 240-foot long cable suspension bridge! Anchored by cables and ties that are cemented into opposing bluffs, the bridge holds over a hundred fifty thousand pounds, so it’s not going anywhere anytime soon.
While the bridge does offer a bit of a bounce, the thirty-inch wide tread is perfectly safe and the bird’s-eye view will leave you spellbound. As does Drift Creek Falls, a 75-foot freefall, whopper of a waterfall that’s located immediately below you.