The sun has come back and Dom and I were itching to go out and explore a new Oregon hike! I’d heard of Opal Creek from a friend of ours who described the hike as a gorgeous little trail following an emerald-colored crystal clear river. There’s just something about that alpine-blue that water can take on which is irresistible to me ever since stumbling upon my first turquoise pond in the jungles of Borneo. To my utter delight I have found since moving back to the Northwest that we have a far greater number of these gorgeous and intriguing azure waters than most other areas in the world!

The morning of the hike our alarms went off and Dom sprang out of bed as usual, while I needed a bit more (okay, a lot more) encouragement and was finally enticed by the smell of my favorite chai tea. We headed out the door with our cameras, some snacks, water and towels hoping that the 60-degree weather would heat up by the time we reached the pools at the end of the trail.

Opal Creek trailhead is usually only an hour and a half drive south of Portland, but we ended up taking a scenic route through some very small towns while trying to follow Apple Maps. (A little tip to other hikers out there - Apple Maps is not the best tool for finding trailheads, we’d found this out before, but somehow in my still sleep-foggy brain I’d forgotten!) Two hours into our journey we did finally arrive at the trailhead and I was surprised to find the first two miles of the “trail” was actually just following a very flat and wide dirt/gravel road. A bit less charming perhaps, but the old-growth redwoods framing the trail made up for it. Dom had never been in a redwood forest such as this one and he was truly impressed with the grandeur of the trees.

After two miles the road split - the left fork goes to an old mining town which I would be very interested to see, but which was closed due to Covid-19, so we took a turn for the right and started up the final mile which would lead to Opal Pool.

Something you should know about me - I am prone to packing WAY more into a day than is usually technically feasible. This means that on a day like this one for example, I’ll plan not only to do a 6-mile hike, but I will also want to sleep in a bit, stop for a cute breakfast at a local bakery, take the scenic route, and stop multiple times along the trail for photos, all with some pressing appointment back in Portland in the early evening. On this hike the pressing appointment was a home showing my husband, who is also a Realtor, had at 5:30. So, when we finally hit this fork in the trail it was already 12:00.

Never fear however, Dom and I have a unique way to handle this situation of being mid a hike and very behind schedule. We just run. So, noting the time we took off up the much steeper and more traditional dirt trail. There were a few river crossings where we could see the water getting bluer and bluer and the path was flanked by not only white bunchberries but also pink rhododendrons.

We arrived at the top of the trail, sweating and out of breath to be met with a gorgeous view of crashing white falls spilling into a pool of the deepest green. It was perfect. There wasn’t a person around and we had all the pools to ourselves.

We immediately took off our shoes and picked our spot to dive into the gorgeous emerald water. I went first and prepared myself for the cold chill of the mountain river. Dom counted down and I dove in head first and was instantly rocked by the freezing temperature of the water. There is a type of cold that just sucks the air straight out of your lungs- this was that type of cold! Breathless I swam back to the rocks and laid out in the sun while Dom too ventured all-in and dove into the pool, coming up gasping for air and laughing.

We played around on the rocks for a while until we started worrying about the time again and then made the trek back down. The gravel road provided an easy path to run on so we sprinted the last mile and a half and made it back to our Jeep at 2:15 with just enough time to get back to Portland.

It’s a gorgeous hike and one I’d do again in a heartbeat, maybe with just a bit less of a time crunch! ;-)

Check out some pictures form the Opal Creek Hike below!