This will be a brief entry for a short hike we completed in July of 2010. Basket Slough Wildlife Refuge is located less than 15 miles from Salem between Highways 22 and 99W. From April 1 thru September all the trails are open in the refuge otherwise only some are hikeable.
For our visit we parked at the Coville Road parking area and set off on the Rich Guadagno Memorial Loop Trail.
We kept right at junctions and after half a mile left the loop trail staying right onto the Morgan Lake Trail. We followed this trail for much of it’s 1.6 mile length before turning left on a path that connected us up to the Moffitti Marsh Trail which was an old roadbed. We followed this trail back up to the Rich Guadagno Loop and again kept right. The loop trail climbed gently up Baskett Butte to a viewing platform. We had seen a couple of deer already and as we headed up to the platform a third deer crossed the trail.
After completing the loop we returned to our car. The total distance was a little under 5 miles. It was only the third hike we’d done since we decided to try out this hiking thing and I had not yet become the crazy picture taking hiker that I am today. Never the less it was a nice place to take a leisurely hike and watch for wildlife. Happy Trails!
wanderingyuncks 
2 replies on “Throwback Thursday – Baskett Slough Wildlife Refuge”
[…] Baskett Slough Refuge – Hiked 7/11/2010, 5/3/2020 & […]
[…] I turned to an old reliable source for wildlife for my first hike of my extended weekend and made the 15 minute drive to the Baskett Slough National Wildlife Refuge. Despite its proximity to our house this was only my fourth time hiking at the refuge, in large part due to the fact that the vast majority of the trails and refuge is closed from October 1st through March 31st. With our official hiking season running from the start of May through the end of October our window for visiting is basically just the month of April unless it shows up on our actual schedule. (My previous visits were in April, May and July.) […]