50 Hikes in the Tillamook and Clatsop State Forests

By Lori LaBissoniere, Riley Pittenger, Robert Kentta and Chris Smith

50 Hikes in the Tillamook and Clatsop State Forests is a guidebook highlighting the adventurous hiking trails within these state forests, ultimately promoting the conservation of these wondrous regional landscapes.

50 Hikes in the Tillamook and Clatsop State Forests provides hikers the chance to explore and experience the ever-changing environments of these forests through the studied eyes of the Sierra Club. This updated edition contains current trail information, path descriptions, driving directions, and regional history on some of Oregon’s lushest yet unexplored trails. 50 Hikes includes a new introduction written by Daniel O'Neil, which details the history of this wondrous region; a foreword by Robert Kentta, cultural resources director of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians; original illustrations of its plant life; and photographs collected by Sierra Club members. Readers will be imbued with a full sense of wonder for these forests. From coastal plains to canopied forests, 50 Hikes celebrates the adventurous landscapes of Northwest Oregon by revisiting the Sierra Club’s iconic 2001 guidebook.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ooligan Press
• Release date: Mar 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781932010978

Book preview

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50 Hikes in the Tillamook and Clatsop State Forests

Sierra Club Oregon Chapter

Ooligan Press

Portland, Oregon

50 Hikes in the Tillamook and Clatsop State Forests

© 2018 Sierra Club Oregon Chapter

ISBN13: 978-1-932010-96-1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Ooligan Press

Portland State University

Post Office Box 751, Portland, Oregon 97207

503.725.9748

[e-mail] | www.ooliganpress.pdx.edu

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Sierra Club. Oregon Chapter, contributing body.

Title: 50 hikes in the Tillamook and Clatsop State forests.

Other titles: Fifty hikes in the Tillamook and Clatsop State forests

Description: Portland, Oregon : Ooligan Press, Portland State University, 2018. | Sierra Club, Oregon Chapter—Cover. | Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017043908 | ISBN 9781932010961 (pbk.)

Subjects: LCSH: Hiking—Oregon—Tillamook State Forest—Guidebooks. | Hiking—Oregon—Clatsop State Forest—Guidebooks. | Trails—Oregon—Tillamook State Forest—Guidebooks. | Trails—Oregon—Clatsop State Forest—Guidebooks | Tillamook State Forest (Or.)—Guidebooks. | Clatsop State Forest (Or.)—Guidebooks.

Classification: LCC GV199.42.O72 T583 2018 | DDC 796.5109795/44—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017043908

Cover design by Andrea McDonald

Interior design by Hope Levy

Index by Kento Ikeda

References to website URLs were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor Ooligan Press is responsible for URLs that have changed or expired since the manuscript was prepared.

Printed in the United States of America

Expanded Region Wilson Corridor MapWilson River Corridor Map

Wilson River Corridor

Wildcat Mountain

Gales Creek

Gales Creek Summit

University Falls

Elk Creek

Elk Mountain—Elk Creek Loop

Kings Mountain

Elk Mountain—Kings Mountain Traverse

Kings Mountain Junior

Larch Mountain—Bell Camp Road

Larch Mountain—Storey Burn Road

East Standard Grade Road

West Standard Grade Road to Blue Lake

Keenig Creek to Footbridge

Jones Creek Day Use Area to Footbridge

Jones Creek to Diamond Mill

Kings Mountain to Diamond Mill

Elk Creek to Kings Mountain

Little North Fork of the Wilson (Lower River Trail)

Triangulation Point

Trask-Tualatin Drainage

Henry Hagg Lake

The Peninsula Trail

Gold Peak

Steampot Creek

Joyce Creek

Miami-Kilchis Drainage

Cedar Butte

Feldshaw Ridge

Sawtooth Ridge

West End of Sawtooth Ridge

Company Creek

Kilchis River

Little South Fork Kilchis River

Salmonberry-Nehalem Drainage

Four County Point Trail

Steam Donkey Trails

Pennoyer Creek and Salmonberry River

North Fork of the Salmonberry to Enright

North Fork of the Salmonberry to Wolf Creek Flats

Lower Salmonberry Trail

Step Creek

Giveout Mountain Scenic Drive

Upper Lost Creek Ridge

Nehalem Falls Loop

Soapstone Lake

North Fork Nehalem River

God’s Valley

Triple C Trail

Clatsop State Forest

Spruce Run Creek Trail

Gnat Creek Trail

Bloom Lake

Northrup Creek Equestrian Loop Trail

Contents

Non-Liability Statement

Foreword

A Message from the Sierra Club

Introduction

Important Information about the Tillamook and Clatsop State Forests Hikes

Wilson River Corridor

Wildcat Mountain

Gales Creek

Gales Creek Summit

University Falls

Elk Creek

Elk Mountain—Elk Creek Loop

Kings Mountain

Elk Mountain—Kings Mountain Traverse

Kings Mountain Junior

Larch Mountain—Bell Camp Road

Larch Mountain—Storey Burn Road

East Standard Grade Road

West Standard Grade Road to Blue Lake

Keenig Creek to Footbridge

Jones Creek Day Use Area to Footbridge

Jones Creek to Diamond Mill

Kings Mountain to Diamond Mill

Elk Creek to Kings Mountain

Little North Fork of the Wilson (Lower River Trail)

Triangulation Point

Trask-Tualatin Drainage

Henry Hagg Lake

The Peninsula Trail

Gold Peak

Steampot Creek

Joyce Creek

Miami-Kilchis Drainage

Cedar Butte

Feldshaw Ridge

Sawtooth Ridge

West End of Sawtooth Ridge

Company Creek

Kilchis River

Little South Fork Kilchis River

Salmonberry-Nehalem Drainage

Four CountyPoint Trail

Steam Donkey Trails

Salmonberry River Overview

Pennoyer Creek and Salmonberry River

North Fork of the Salmonberry to Enright

North Fork of the Salmonberry to Wolf Creek Flats

Lower Salmonberry Trail

Step Creek

Giveout Mountain Scenic Drive

Upper Lost Creek Ridge

Nehalem Falls Loop

Soapstone Lake

North Fork Nehalem River

God’s Valley

Triple C Trail

Clatsop State Forest

Spruce Run Creek Trail

Gnat Creek Trail

Bloom Lake

Northrup Creek Equestrian Loop Trail

Plant List

Other Resources

Index

Ooligan Press

Landmarks

Cover

Table of Contents

Start Reading Here

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Non-Liability Statement

While we have made a considerable effort to check the accuracy of information in this book, errors and omissions may still occur. Changes may also happen on the land, and some descriptions that were accurate when written may be inaccurate when you read this book. One storm or logging truck, for example, can block a road, or the Oregon Department of Forestry may obliterate or change a trail.

In addition, hiking, climbing, biking, and driving in forests (especially near timber sale sites) are inherently dangerous activities. The final judgment and decision to pursue outdoor activities is always your responsibility as the user of this book. It is your responsibility to acquire the necessary skills and abilities. You must be physically fit before attempting any of the hikes described here. You must decide whether a road or trail and the weather conditions are safe for you to start or continue a trip. Road and trail conditions continually change due to timber sale activity, flooding, erosion and other natural or human-caused events. Logging and gravel trucks may meet you on forest roads. You must decide for yourself whether conditions are safe and whether you have the skills and fitness to do the hikes in this book. This book is meant only to inform and inspire.

The authors, publishers and all those associated with this publication, directly or indirectly, assume no responsibility for any accident, injury, damage or loss whatsoever that may occur to anyone using this book. The responsibility for good health and safety while hiking or driving to a hike is yours and yours alone.

Foreword

The names Clatsop and Tillamook apply not only to the two state forests this guide is about but to the counties the forests are in and our ancestral people, the Clatsop tribe and various bands of the larger Tillamook language group—Nehalem, Tillamook Bay, Nestucca, Neachesna (Salmon River), and Siletz (Neslets) bands of Tillamook Indians. The state forests and the lands surrounding them are their home, their gardens, their grocery, their medicine cabinet. Thousands of years of interactions between people and the land created mosaic landscapes of ancient forests, early and mid-seral forests, and open headlands, ridgetops, and meadows. Frequently applied, low-intensity fires (at proper times) maintained a prosperous and biodiverse landscape for the benefit of all.

Our Clatsop people are most known for their interactions with the Lewis and Clark party. The fort the party built and occupied in Clatsop territory over the winter of 1805–06 bore the name Fort Clatsop. Few people, excepting a small number of Northwest Indian basketry enthusiasts, know that Clatsop basketry is some of the finest wrapped-twine basketry there is, and the work was only accomplished with materials gathered from sandy beaches and tide pools to lofty summits. Additional weaving techniques using other materials round out a rich tradition of fiber arts for our ancestors from the south bank at the mouth of the Columbia and nearby uplands north of Tillamook Head.

Not to be left out, our Tillamook basketry rivals that of their near neighbors to the north and resembles it closely. The Tillamook peoples wrought finely woven treasure baskets and tough utilitarian wares with materials from patches that their ancestors also maintained, enhanced, and gathered from.

Since the loss of lands through solemn promises not kept, these ancestral landscapes have been undeniably altered by road building and other development, harvest of the biggest and most ancient stands of timber, then the catastrophic fires of the early-mid 1900s (the Tillamook Burn), and, when the smokes cleared, the gargantuan efforts to restore an overcooked ecosystem. The objective was to plant and promote regrowth of the most merchantable timber species: Douglas-fir (Oregon’s state tree). The diversity of forest species was reduced with that effort, but it is being reclaimed with today’s restoration efforts. There remain many hints of the original grandness of these northwest Oregon wonders—the landscapes and the forests. With each year that passes since the Tillamook Burn era, those memories, that legacy, come back into clearer focus through the mists of time carried on coastal breezes.

As you trek, wander, or stroll through these recommended hikes, remember you are in a special place. If it suits you, think of the people who came before you—their epic struggles to maintain themselves and their place in the world, their care for these homeland landscapes, their moments of serenity in like surroundings, and their sense of wonder and thankfulness for those who came before them to make this place what it is: thoroughly Clatsop and Tillamook country. No other place quite like it.

Robert Kentta

Cultural Resources Director,

The Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians

A Message from the Sierra Club

In 2017, the importance of Oregon’s state-owned forests was made ever clearer by the near sale of the Elliott State Forest on the south Oregon coast. The Elliott differs slightly from the Tillamook and Clatsop forests in terms of management expectations and ecology. However, all of these public lands share the critical ecological importance of being relatively intact anchors within a sea of private, industrial timberlands along Oregon’s coast. Moreover, it is state forests that Oregonians have the most control over; we can access them freely, weigh in on their management, and be true stakeholders in their futures.

The Elliott is not alone in facing the threat of privatization. Even before the nationwide fear of losing public lands heated up, the Tillamook and Clatsop quietly encountered this possibility. The Oregon Department of Forestry convened a stakeholder group from 2013–2014 in an attempt to gain consensus about the management of the Tillamook and Clatsop. One proposal, which was brought forth by a representative of a logging company, was the sale of these forests. The idea was never seriously considered, but there is clearly an interest in seeing these forests logged at the highest rate possible.

The near sale of the Elliott garnered national headlines and mobilized diverse public-lands activists across the state. We hope that it also helped Oregonians realize the continued importance of our state forests and remain vigilant about keeping them public and protected.

Chris Smith

Member, Sierra Club Oregon Chapter

Introduction

Light filters through the treetops to the dewy ferns below. Clover-shaped sorrel carpets the earth along a trail and tiny yellow wood violets dot the forest floor. Here and there, huge charred stumps decay gracefully amid living browns and greens. A creek glides by and a salmon darts through the spray in a silvery flash on its upstream journey home. It’s amazing that a serene place like this—a place in the Tillamook or Clatsop State Forest—can be found within an hour of downtown Portland. Although people are discovering this beautiful landscape, it’s possible to hike here and not see another person all day long.

The Tillamook State Forest provides hundreds of thousands of acres for outdoor recreation in