Sweet Creek's Homestead Trail

It was a short drive from Florence—seeming even shorter than the map’s 15 miles due to the sunny morning—along Highway 126 to the Siuslaw River Bridge in Mapleton. Crossing the bridge and turning onto Sweet Creek Road for 10 miles brought us to the Homestead Trailhead turnaround.

In this Coast Range valley of Oregon, the Sweet Creek Trail follows the cascading waters of Sweet Creek.

At times, the trail was several feet away from the creek, but always within sight of the creek.

But for most of the roughly one mile distance, the trail followed the Sweet Creek, right along the bank.

A portion of the trail was a metal structure that hugged the rocky cliff along the creek.

All along the trail, the sound of the rushing water offered a welcome accompaniment to the warmth of the sun.

A plaque along the trail identifies the falls below as the Annice Falls. It occurs along an unnamed tributary of Sweet Creek, immediately above the top of Punchbowl Canyon Falls. The falls slide about 35 feet into Sweet Creek, adjacent to another 8 foot fall along Sweet Creek.

Annice Falls

The falls were named for Annice Marie Ellingson Johnson, a former secretary of Mapleton Elementary of 30 years, who was born and raised on a ranch on the banks of Sweet Creek.

It was an easy walk with few changes in elevation. However, I still had to follow the “walk with your head down; look around when you’re standing still” guideline in order to avoid the rocks in many sections of the trail.

The valley here was settled in 1879 by the Zarah T. Sweets, a family of Oregon Trail pioneers. The modern trail incorporates portions of an early wagon road.

I’m not sure how much of a drop was required to earn the designation of “waterfall,” but the absence of a title for sections of the creek did not adversely affect the enjoyment of the walk.