Tag: Boulder Creek

Lower McKenzie River Trail – 12/21/2024

Post author By derwoodynck
Post date December 23, 2024
No Comments on Lower McKenzie River Trail – 12/21/2024

There haven’t been many good weather days in December and those that were dry had either been on days when we were at our desks at work, or one of us was under the weather. With Christmas right around the corner we were running out of time for a December hike so we decided that no matter what the weather we would be heading out on the winter solstice. Once again, the forecast was for a dry day Friday but rain all day Saturday. Given the forecast we opted for a river hike. Forested river hikes typically don’t have big views so cloudy skies don’t negatively impact the hike.

We headed to the McKenzie River National Recreation Trail to hike a segment of the trail we had not hiked before. We parked at the Lower McKenzie River Trailhead. (Note that the linked Forest Service page incorrectly states the trailhead is along Highway 125 instead of 126.)
The trailhead.

The trail begins at a signboard at the eastern end of the trailhead. For the first half mile the trail squeezes between the river and the highway before briefly veering away from the highway.
The caution sign was related to some pile burning that the Forest Service had been doing.

McKenzie River

Mushrooms

The trail approached the highway again across from McKenzie River Ranger Station.

After passing a junction with a spur trail coming from the ranger station at the 1 mile mark the McKenzie River Trail dropped away from the highway.
National Recreation Trail symbol on a tree to the left.

For the next 4.5 miles the trail stayed further away from the highway. At times it followed the bank of the McKenzie River and at others it veered away to avoid private property. At all times the trail passed through a lush green forest.

Private Road sign on Duffy Rd.

There was quite a bit of witches’ butter fungus along the trail.

There were a lot of other mushrooms too.

Unnamed creek crossing.

Ruby-crowned kinglet. We didn’t see much wildlife on this hike but there were several kinglets flitting among the trees here. This was the only photo of one I managed to get though.

We had not expected any blue sky so this was a treat. It had rained for most of the drive and sprinkled for a minute shortly after we started hiking, but it had been dry otherwise.

The trail switching back up a small hill.

The most significant elevation change was this decent to a footbridge over Lost Creek.

Coral fungus

Lost Creek

The footbridge over Lost Creek was a little over 4.5-miles from the Lower McKenzie Trailhead.

Lost Creek

Willamette National Forest Boundary

Approximately 5.25-miles from the trailhead we crossed Belknap Hot Springs Road.

Sign for the Belknap Hot Springs Lodge and Gardens.

Shortly after passing the lodge the trail approached the highway again for a brief time before the river veered away again and the trail followed it.

We had originally planned on turning around at 11am, but Heather’s ankle was starting to bother her, so she turned around at 10:45. I decided to keep going for another 15 or so minutes to try and reach Forest Road 2650 where the trail crosses the river to continue on the western side of the river.
Unnamed seasonal stream.

Footbridge over Scott Creek.

Scott Creek

Mushrooms

Footbridge over Boulder Creek.

Highway 126 bridge over Boulder Creek from the footbridge.

Boulder Creek flowing into the McKenzie River.

Forest Road 2650.

Boat ramp at Forest Road 2650.

The river from Forest Road 2650.

I turned around on the bridge and started back at a quick pace to try and catch up to Heather.

This short section along the road is just east of Belknap Springs Road.

Madrones

Moving at a quick pace had heated me up enough that I had to take off my rain gear which I’d been wearing the entire hike despite it being 99% dry.
A little sunlight on the forest floor.

Not 10 minutes after removing my rain gear it began to rain.
Rain shower falling over Lost Creek. It wasn’t raining hard enough to convince me to pull my rain gear back out.

I spotted Heather with a little over three and a quarter mile left back to the trailhead. (Look for a little orange in the trees ahead and to the right of the trail.)

The rain had stopped again by the time I caught up to Heather.

Ours was the only car at the trailhead when we got back.

My Garmin showed 13.8 miles for the hike to FR 2650, and I’d estimate close to 700′ of elevation gain spread out over several short climbs.

With this hike in books, we’ve now hiked much of the 26.5 McKenzie River Trail.
Red – Clear Lake, June 2014 (post). Green – Tamolitch Pool, May 2013 (post), Cyan – Middle segment, November 2020 (post).

We also started a hike at the Upper McKenzie Trailhead in July 2023 (post) but took the Santiam Wagon Road to Sand Mountain instead of the McKenzie River Trail. We are now just missing sections of the trail between the upper trailhead and Clear Lake, Clear Lake and Koosah Falls, and FR 610 and FR 2650. At some point we do plan on filling in those gaps.

This hike wraps up our 2024 hikes. We hope everyone has a merry Christmas and a happy New Year, and as always happy trails!

Flickr: Lower McKenzie River Trail

Tags Belknap Springs, Boulder Creek, hiking, Lost Creek, Lower McKenzie River Trail, McKenzie River National Recreation Trail, McKenzie River Trail, Oregon, Scott Creek

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Progress Report – Oregon Wilderness Areas – January, 2021 Update

Post author By derwoodynck
Post date January 12, 2021
9 Comments on Progress Report – Oregon Wilderness Areas – January, 2021 Update

Heading into 2020 we had plans to visit 5 of the 6 remaining wilderness areas in which he haven’t hiked (post), but 2020 had other plans. Plans to visit three of the areas were moved to another year and a fourth was pushed back from May to September. Flooding in February wiped out our plans to visit the North Fork Umatilla Wilderness which was the same trip that we had planned on visiting the Black Canyon Wilderness. Rearranging hikes due to COVID-19 pushed a visit to the Devils Staircase Wilderness back a year.

Plans for a Memorial Day weekend trip to Roseburg involving a hike in the Boulder Creek Wilderness were a COVID cancellation but we managed to fit the Boulder Creek hike into our Labor Day weekend plans (post).
Boulder Creek Wilderness sign

Boulder Creek Trail Ponderosa Pines in the Boulder Creek Wilderness

Looking up the Boulder Creek Valley Boulder Creek Wilderness

Boulder Creek

A July vacation to Lakeview and a visit to the Gearhart Mountain Wilderness (post) was the only visit that happened as planned.
Gearhart Mountain Wilderness sign

The Palisades in the Gearhart Mountain Wilderness The Palisades

Gearhart Mountain

View from Gearhart Mountain Looking down from Gearhart Mountain

Meadow below Gearhart Mountain

Gearhat Mountain Looking up at Gearhart Mountain

Visiting these two wildernesses puts us at 42 out of the 46 accessible wilderness. The three areas mentioned above are again in our plans for this year as well as the Monument Rock Wilderness in eastern Oregon. With any luck 2021 will be a better year and we will be able to reach our goal, but if not there’s always next year. Happy Trails!

Tags Boulder Creek, Boulder Creek Wilderness, Gearhart Mountain Wilderness, Gearhart Mountian, hiking, Oregon, Wilderness

Hiking Old Cascades Oregon Trip report

Boulder Creek Wilderness – 09/07/2020

Post author By derwoodynck
Post date September 13, 2020
4 Comments on Boulder Creek Wilderness – 09/07/2020

**Note the 2024 Pine Bench Fire burned over a portion of this hike.**

We woke up at Wiley Camp on Labor Day and got ready to head back to the Hummingbird Meadows Trailhead. Our plan for the day was to drive back to Salem via Highway 138 and stop at the Boulder Creek Wilderness, one of the five remaining Oregon wilderness areas we had yet to visit (post) and one of Sullivan’s featured hikes.

It was the least smokey morning of the weekend which made for a pleasant 2 mile hike back to our car.
Buck Canyon Trail

View from the Buck Canyon Trail

Hummingbird Meadows Trail

West Fork Muir Creek

We drove back to Diamond Lake (post) from the trailhead then took Highway 138 toward Roseburg to milepost 55. There we turned right onto Medicine Creek Road and made an immediate left onto Soda Springs Road following it for 1.3 miles to the Soda Springs Trailhead.

From the trailhead we took the Soda Springs Trail which ducked beneath a large steel pipe diverting water from the North Umpqua River to a nearby power station.

The trail began climbing immediately after passing under the pipe and quickly arrived at a signed junction where the North Umpqua Trail forked to the right.

The trail continued to climb through previously burned woods to another junction .4 miles from the trailhead.

This was the Bradley Trail onto which we turned left following pointers for Pine Bench.

This trail climbed over 650′ in the next mile before leveling out along the broad plateau of Pine Bench. There was an increasing presence of poison oak along the trail which we kept our eyes out for. It was especially bad along the hillside after we entered a more recent (2017) fire scar.

Bradley Trail passing below some cliffs.

A lot of the poison oak was turning color which made it easier to spot.

Entering the 2017 fire scar.

Lizard

Bradley Trail arriving at Pine Bench.

It was a hot climb in the exposed sun so reaching the forest atop Pine Bench was a nice reprise from both the heat and the vast majority of poison oak.

Rock formation visible from the Bradley Trail.

A little over a mile and a half from the Soda Springs/Bradley Trail junction we arrived at the Boulder Creek Trail.

We turned right here looking for a side trail to a spring near a campsite.

Common wood nymph

Illahee Rock Lookout

We passed the campsite after .4 miles but we didn’t take the unsigned spur trail down to the spring due to the GPS map showing the trail further off.

Spur trail to the left.

We quickly realized that the trail we had seen must have been the one we wanted but decided to continue on for now. From the campsite the trail continued to Boulder Creek after 1.7 miles. We were seeing very little poison oak and it was a nice day on the bench so we opted to do Sullivan’s longer described hike to the creek. The trail made a few unexpectedly steep up and downs and it grew fainter with a few downed snags but it was passable and there were signs of recent brushing/trail maintenance.

Just over half a mile from the campsite we passed the very faint Perry Butte Trail.

Trail maintenance and ripe blackberries.

Looking up the Boulder Creek Valley

Looking down at the trail across a side drainage.

Looking across the Boulder Creek valley.

Small fall on Boulder Creek

Final drop down to Boulder Creek.

Boulder Creek

We took a short break on the rocks along the creek before turning back.

The continuation of the Boulder Creek Trail on the far side of Boulder Creek which reportedly becomes even fainter and more wild.

After cooling off a bit we started the process of climbing back up to the campsite and the spur trail to the spring.

When we made it back to the spur trail we turned down it for 100 yards to a wide open area with madrone trees.

The spring was just below some rocks on the left but there wasn’t much water flowing this time of year.

After another short break we continued back to the Bradley Trail junction. We stayed straight here following the Boulder Creek Trail downhill through the 2017 fire scar. While there had been a good deal of poison oak along the Bradley Trail this trail put that one to shame. It was all avoidable but it was thick along the trail as it switchbacked downhill. There was also one switchback near the top where we were forced to walk down a large downed tree.
Fern tree along the Boulder Creek Trail.

This log was the trail.

Another switchback with poison oak on all sides of the trail.

The bright side of going down this way was there was a wilderness sign, or at least most of one (we hadn’t seen one on the other side).

After a approximately 1.5 miles we arrived at a junction with the North Umpqua Trail where we turned left on an old roadbed.

We followed the road another tenth of a mile or so to a gate blocking the road at the Boulder Creek Trailhead.

Not too far from the gate we came to a pair of boulders blocking the road meaning the actual trailhead is inaccessible via car although there was room to park at the boulders. We continued down the road which brought us close to the North Umpqua River near the power station.

We stopped at the far end of the Soda Springs Day Use Area to read the interpretive signs before returning to our car.

We headed back to Salem and when we were back in cell range began receiving alerts about a hazardous wind event. By the time we made it back to Salem strong dry winds from the east had pushed the Lionshead and Beachie Creek Fires into the valley. Later that evening/night those fires would explode along with numerous other new fires up and down the West Coast. A slightly smokey but wonderful Labor Day Weekend turned into a nightmare for thousands. The fires continue to be a huge danger to many but the winds have shifted and rain is in the forecast so hopefully some relief is coming. Happy Trails and stay safe.

Flickr: Boulder Creek Wilderness

Tags Boulder Creek, Boulder Creek Trail, Boulder Creek Wilderness, Bradley Trail, Buck Canyon Trail, hiking, Hummingbird Meadows Trail, Hummingbird Meadows Trailhead, Illahe Rock Lookout, Oregon, Perry Butte, Pine Bench, Rogue-Umpqua Divide Wilderness, Soda Springs Trail, Soda Springs Trailhead, Spring, Wiley Camp, Wiley Camp Trail