About Golden Falls
Golden Falls shared the same namesake State Park with Silver Falls. In order to get a view of it, we only had to do a 20-minute return walk to its misty (at least when we were there) base. However, we also took the time to do the 60-minute return hike on the Upper Trail to get right up to the top of the falls where we could appreciate its 140ft cumulative drop.
From what we could tell, both waterfalls in the state park seemed very similar to us. It was almost as if we could’ve easily confused the two if we were given unlabeled pictures of each of them.
Anyways, the muddy (when we were there) Upper Trail crossed a bridge then went up some long switchbacks passing by a short spur that led right to the base of Silver Falls. The trail continued its climb until it reached a ledge near the top of Golden Falls.
From up at this vantage point, the trees, creeks, and angled views of the falls were below us. We had to be very careful around the cliff edges because there were no guardrails. So even though we wanted to get as close to the cliff edge as possible to see the most we could, we knew that the rain made the surface slick and the stability of the cliffs could not be taken for granted either. As you can see from the photos on this page, we thought the views we had gotten were good enough and the risk/reward for getting closer to the edge didn’t seem like a good trade.
Given that our visit was inundated with heavy rains (and lots of it), hiking here was damp and muddy almost throughout the trail. I’m sure it also grew the size of the waterfall so I’d imagine under more nominal conditions, the waterfall’s flow would probably be less than what’s pictured on this page. Nonetheless, it’s a worthwhile half-day detour if you’re touring this part of the Oregon Coast.
This waterfall shares the same trailhead as Silver Falls (where the nearest town was Coos Bay). See that page for driving directions.
Just to give you an idea of the geographical context of the area, Coos Bay was about 24 miles (30 minutes drive) north of Bandon, 116 miles (over 2 hours drive) southwest of Eugene, 165 miles (3 hours drive) northwest of Medford, and 224 miles (nearly 4 hours drive) south of Portland.
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Bottom up sweep from the end of the trail in the pouring rain
Precarious right to left sweep of the scenery ending at the falls captured from the edge of a cliff edge
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