Falls City is a gateway to the famed Valley of the Giants, the spectacular and popular BLM Old Growth preserve high in the Coast Range Mountains. The 40 acre preserve is about a 1.5 hour drive on narrow logging roads from Falls City. It is above 2,000 ft. elevation, at the source of the Siletz River, near the pristine and magnificent North Fork Siletz River in country full of Elk, Deer, Merganser ducks, Kingfishers, Salmon, Steelhead Trout, Black Bear, and Beaver. Trips in the spring can lead through fields of yellow Scotch Broom, hillsides of full of pink Fox Glove, and valleys covered in Rhododendron. Once at the VG, you can take a 1.5 mile hike along a modest-grade loop that takes you past huge old growth trees, and puts you back where you started. For details and maps contact the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Salem office at 503- 375-5646. Access to the BLM site is through private timber company land on dangerous, one-lane gravel roads. The trip is best done on weekends to avoid heavy commercial log truck traffic.

Special Thanks to Dan & Sue Hathaway and friends
for the following pictures taken spring of 2005

This is "Big Guy", affectionately so named by Chemeketan Maynard Drawson. It is 36 1/2 feet in circumference and stood 230 feet high before it fell in a storm about 1983.