Round this last bend and the canyon opens up, tucked into the back of this box like a secret the creek's been keeping. Upper North Falls, sixty-five feet, the last waterfall down here in the canyon — the ninth of your day, with only Winter Falls still ahead on the rim. North Fork Silver Creek slides off a shelf and drops clean into a green pool you can walk right up to. Watch how it falls — the whole creek gathered and pouring straight down into its own deep plunge pool. That pool is the work of the falls itself. Drop after drop, season after season, the landing water has scoured the rock below into a basin deeper and rounder than anywhere else along this fork, and it holds the cold like a cupped hand. Notice how quiet it got. The crowds thin out here because this one sits off the main loop, down a spur most hikers skip, which is exactly why it's worth the extra steps. Three walls of rock close around you, dripping with moss and licorice fern. No railing crowds you, no platform — just the bare lip of the pool and the falls filling the whole far wall. Stand a second at the water's edge. This is the far point, the turnaround, the deepest you'll go into these canyons today. Every step from here points the other way. From this pool, the whole trail tips toward home.
Photo: Bonnie from United States · CC0
