The Burdoin Fire – Part 1: Resiliency

February 2, 2026 / Tom Kloster / Leave a comment

The Burdoin Fire was already moving east toward Coyote Wall on July 18, 2025, just hours after it started (photo: KVAL)

The Burdoin Fire erupted along the shoulder of Washington State Route 14 on a warm Friday afternoon last July, about two miles east of the town of White Salmon. Like most wildfires in the Gorge, it was human-caused and could have been prevented. Fanned by summer winds, the fire quickly spread eastward, sweeping across some of the best-known, most treasured public lands in the Columbia River Gorge, burning through iconic places like Coyote Wall and Catherine Creek.

On just the second day, the fire had roared into the Catherine Creek area and was now threatening the town of Lyle, a full seven miles upriver from its origin. That day, the Klickitat County Sheriff issued a Level 3 “Go now!” order and the town and surrounding area were evacuated. More than 900 wildland firefighters would eventually be on the ground over the next two weeks to help contain the blaze. The map below shows the general path of the fire over the days that followed.

[click here for a large version of the map]

By the time it was controlled in mid-August, the fire had burned a swath nearly 10 miles long and blackened more than 11,000 acres. Though the town of Lyle was spared, more than 100 structures were lost in the fire. No lives were reported lost in the event. The full scope of the impact on the Oak Savannah ecosystem remains unknown until spring, when it will become clear how the Oregon white oak trees fared. This 3-part series of articles is a snapshot in time as of early December, when the ecosystem recovery had visibly begun, but with many questions about long-term resiliency unanswered.

What’s dead and what’s alive?

With Ponderosa pine it’s easy to see where fire has killed limbs or whole trees simply by where green foliage remains a few months after a fire. Sometime conifers can produce new growth from limbs whose needles were browned or even burned off by fire, but usually they sacrifice these limbs and focus their energy on green, healthier limbs.

The impact of fire on conifers is almost immediate, with burned areas turning brown (or with foliage completely burned away) and surviving areas retaining their green, living foliage.

There’s a benefit to sacrificing low-hanging limbs that is an evolutionary adaptation for fire-dependent conifers like Pondersosa pine, Western larch and Douglas fir. By shedding lower limbs over time, whether through exposure to fire or simply aging, they reduce the risk of these limbs providing a “ladder” for intense fires to climb into the crown of a tree, which it is much less likely to survive. Their fire-adapted thick bark, especially on older trees, helps protect the trunk against all but the hottest fires.

Over the longer term, conifers that lose more than half their foliage will often struggle to rebuild a canopy sufficient to survive, so in the years following a fire some heavily impacted Ponderosa pine in the Burdoin area may weaken and eventually lose the battle.

For deciduous trees in the dry East Gorge, like the dominant Oregon white oak and occasional Bigleaf maple, the visual impact of fire in the months after a burn can be counter-intuitive. With most fires occurring in the dry summer months, the immediate impact is browned leaves left hanging on scorched limbs, killed by the heat but not completely burned away. In fall, healthy leaves on surviving trees will turn color and drop naturally, following their annual cycle.

Understanding what survived on deciduous trees in the first winter after a fire is counter-intuitive, as the burned limbs and trees typically don’t drop their leaves in fall.

However, brown, killed leaves tend to hang on during the first winter, whether on just a burned limb or an entire tree killed in the fire, thus interrupting the normal process of dropping leaves in fall as they enter winter dormancy. Trees or limbs killed by fire are thus frozen in time, with brown, dead leaves hanging from killed limbs seeming to be the survivors, and healthy, bare limbs seeming to be killed by the fire. After the first winter the burned leaves will eventually drop off, and when new foliage emerges in spring the surviving trees will be more intuitive – green foliage on the survivors, with bare limbs and trees showing the true impact of the fire.

Learning from the Aftermath in Three Parts

With any wildfire, there is much to learn in the immediate aftermath, and this is especially true in the oak savannah grasslands of the East Gorge, where a single season of regrowth can erase much of the visible burn scar left from a fire. This 3-part series is a virtual survey of the aftermath of the 2025 Burdoin Fire in three separate areas of the burn (shown on the map, below), each centered on a popular trail and each with a different story to tell.

[click here for a large version of the map]

This first installment examines the west end of the fire, nearest its origin, where it burned across the area known as the Labyrinth. The second installment will focus on open savannah country between the Rowland Wall and Catherine Creek, and an area that had already burned in the fall of 2024. The third installment will survey Catherine Creek canyon and the burned savannah areas to the east of the canyon. The trail routes followed for each survey are also shown on the above map. The photos for these tours were taken in December 2025.

The Labyrinth: A Story of Wildfire Resiliency and Renewal

Few trails in the Gorge reveal the power of the ice age Missoula Floods that shaped the landscape like the Labyrinth Trail, which winds through a tortured landscape of basalt walls, fins and mesas stripped bare to bedrock by these massive floods just 13,000 years ago – a geologic blink of an eye.

The trail corkscrews steeply upward through this rocky maze until it suddenly reaches the gentle, wildflower-filled upper slopes. Here, above the high-water flood levels that rose to be as much 600 feet deep, soils were left intact. We’re only beginning to understand the scale of these floods, though scientists now believe there were at least 40, and perhaps as many as 100 of these catastrophic events over two millennia, shaping the rugged Gorge as we know it today.

The basalt mesa known to hikers as Accordion Rock rises above a burned landscape in the Labyrinth. Bright green grasses and meadow wildflowers had already begun to emerging by late November, just four months after the Burdoin Fire had burned through. The Oregon white oak trees in this view aren’t showing fall color; instead, these are leaves killed by the fire and left hanging long after healthy oaks have dropped their leave and entered winter dormancy. We won’t know the full impact of the fire on trees like these until spring.

Along its route, the Labyrinth trail passes through dense groves of mostly stunted Oregon white oak and scattered, often stunted Ponderosa pine growing in the thin soils that exist within the flood-scoured maze of the Labyrinth. Trees in this area were hit hard, in part because they live a stressed life in the already harsh conditions. By comparison, the deeper soils and gentler slopes above the Labyrinth support thriving groves of large oaks and impressively tall Ponderosas. Size and vigor matter for trees exposed to fire, and trees on these upper slopes seem to have fared somewhat better, at least at this early stage of recovery. We won’t really know until spring.

This was the first major fire to hit the Labyrinth in many years, another factor shaping how and where the burn impacted the landscape, as some of the most impacted areas are where a dense understory vulnerable to fire had formed over decades, often with accumulated debris in the form of fallen trees and limbs. This had a striking impact in fueling the flames in ways that can already be seen in just the few months since the fire, so there is already much to learn about fire resiliency and ecosystem renewal in the Labyrinth.

The Fallen Oaks

Together with Ponderosa pine, our native Oregon white oaks are a keystone species in the East Gorge, supporting hundreds of species of wildlife that rely upon them. One of the important benefits they bring are the signature cavities that form in older trees where they have been scarred or have simply shed limbs, providing critical shelter for wildlife.

The fire aftermath along the Labyrinth Trail shows how fire can both create these cavities while also exploiting them to topple whole trees. By creating new scars, fires can expose heartwood that will eventually decay to become hollows. Yet, the same openings also allow fire to reach dry heartwood, ultimately felling entire trees by burning them from the inside out. There are many large oaks that met this fate throughout the Labyrinth

This big oak along the Labyrinth Trail was felled by the fire, yet it didn’t entirely burn. Instead, the fire burned from inside the tree’s hollow base. The unburned bark and browned leaves on its downed top suggest that it fell after the main fire event had move eastward, yet left the tree’s hollow core smoldering until it finally collapsed under its own weight.

This is the stump of the tree shown in the preview view (the top can be seen in the background) showing how the fire burned inside the tree long enough to completely hollow it, eventually causing the tree to collapse.

This big oak along the Labyrinth trail met a similar fate, with its charred, hollowed-out stump in the foreground and the tree’s collapsed, unburned trunk and limbs beyond.

This big oak was also toppled by fire burning within its hollow trunk. Part of the tree’s top is lying to the right, unburned because it likely fell after the fire had already swept through and consumed the understory brush and debris here. The blackened area in front of the tree tells the story of a main trunk that had enough deadwood inside to fuel a complete burn, leaving only a white line of ashes to mark where it fell.

This wide view of the previous fallen oak shows the line of ashes left from the completely burned main section of its trunk and a scattering of green, upper limbs left mostly unburned by the fire. Like the previous examples, the unburned bark on these limbs show that the tree fell sometime after the fire had already cleared the understory here and moved eastward.

Oak Showing their Resilience

In the central Gorge, where the Eagle Creek Fire roared through in 2017, Bigleaf maple have emerged as a super-species in the forest recovery process. Throughout the lower elevations of the Gorge fire burn scar, thickets of new leaders exploded from the stumps of burned Bigleaf maple trees within a year. Today, many of these newly sprouted stems have grown to be 10-15 feet tall. Over time, 3-5 of these leads will become dominant. We know this from the mature, multi-trunked rainforest maples that are so familiar and iconic in the Gorge – only, now we can better understand one reason why this form is so common.

This survival strategy is much the same for Oregon white oak. While they lack the thick, protective bark of a Ponderosa pine to protect the living cambium layer beneath their bark, many oaks along the Labyrinth Trail are already cashing in their adaptive insurance policy by pushing up new shoots from their base. This, just months after the fire and long after the normal spring growing season, shows how completely adapted to – and reliant upon – wildfire our native oaks have become.

Like many of the Oregon white oak in the Labyrinth, this tree looks quite dead at first glance, still covered with killed foliage that should otherwise have been shed with the fall leaf drop. But a closer look….

…reveals this oak to have already pushed up new shoots from its intact roots.

Still more surprising, new growth was also emerging from the main trunk, where the tree’s bark was thickest and protected the tree just enough to lose its limbs to the fire, but not its main trunk.

This grove of oaks in the Labyrinth was cleared of most of its understory and accumulated debris by the fire. Many of the lower limbs have been killed by the fire, as revealed by the scorched leaves still hanging from the lower third of these trees. The upper limbs survived long enough to shed their leaves in the fall, leaving them bare for the winter and more likely to produce new foliage in the spring.

This close-up view of the previous image shows a rusty stripe within a larger bare patch extending from a burned-out stump – all are telltale signs that a tree that was downed in the fire (or perhaps already on the ground), and burned long and hot here. The lingering embers burned hot enough to turn brown, living soil into red, mineral soil, marking where the fallen tree trunk lay. The surrounding, darker soil marks the area where the fire had sufficient fuel to burn long enough to kill the roots and seeds of understory plants that are otherwise rebounding around this cleared patch.

It’s hard not to become attached to iconic trees, and this picturesque twin-trunked oak at the top of the Labyrinth is a sentimental favorite to many. Though the fire swept through here, this fine tree seems to have survived… though we won’t know for certain until spring foliage appears.

A closer look at the charred area to the right of this iconic oak shows how narrowly this tree dodged the fire – just a few inches that might have decided its fate.

In the upper meadows above the Labyrinth, the oaks are much larger, thanks to deep soils above the flood-scoured Labyrinth. However, the better soils here and an absence of fire in recent years also contributed to an overgrown understory and accumulation of debris that completely burned away in the fire. We’ll know in the spring if the heat from this intense burning was too much for these big groves to survive.

Bigleaf maple aren’t common in the East Gorge, though they thrive in niche locations along cliff walls and protected gullies that produce groundwater seeps and concentrate stormwater sufficient for them to live in this desert climate. This Bigleaf maple clearly lost its lower limbs to the fire – those still covered in scorched foliage – but its upper limbs lived to shed their foliage normally in the fall, suggesting the fire move fast and low here, allowing the main trunk and upper limbs to survive.

Another bigleaf maple in the Labyrinth that seems to have survived the fire, with the yellow leaves on the left making limbs that survived long enough to turn in the fall and scorched leaves on the right that were killed in the fire. Like the oaks, we’ll know in the spring whether these maples have survived the fire to grow for another season.

Mighty Ponderosa

Ponderosa pines are scattered throughout The Labyrinth, with some of the largest, most stately trees growing in the upper meadows, well above the Missoula flood zone. While these trees are completely adapted to periodic, low-intensity fire with their protective, fire-resistant bark and high limbs, the Burdoin Fire managed to reach the crowns of several of the largest Ponderosa along the Labyrinth Trail, revealing the intensity of the fire. Most of these trees still hold green foliage, but their loss of living canopy will slow their growth for many years, and some may not survive the loss of foliage over the long term.

Smaller Ponderosa pine are highly vulnerable to fire, as they haven’t had time to build up a protective bark layer and their foliage is still close to the ground, creating an easy “ladder” for fires to climb into their canopy. Thus, many of smaller Ponderosa along the Labyrinth Trail were killed by the fire. Unlike their adaptive oak neighbors, pines don’t grow new shoots from their roots, so it will be up to the surviving large Ponderosa to re-seed the area in the aftermath of the fire.

This big Ponderosa pine in the hearth of the Labyrinth lost most of its foliage to the fire due to a “ladder” of low limbs that allowed the fire to climb into its crown. Ponderosa have evolved to thrive with frequent, low-intensity fire, shedding their lowest, scorched limbs to become even more resilient for the next fire event. In the absence of regular fires, this big Ponderosa matured with its lower canopy fully intact, exposing it to a crown fire when an intense burn like the Burdoin Fire finally arrived. If this tree survives, it will take many years to build enough new canopy to bring the tree back to health.

This young trailside Ponderosa didn’t have a chance, but upon closer inspection…

…a pair of young oaks sharing space with the pine are already pushing up new shoots from their surviving roots, a super-power that allows oaks to quickly bounce back after fire in the East Gorge..

This young Ponderosa passed the test, sacrificing lower limbs to the fire, yet retaining its crown. Eventually shedding those killed lower limbs will help the tree survive future fires.

This large Ponderosa in the Labyrinth, with its tall canopy and high limbs, seems to have survived a hot spot in the fire that was intense enough to kill most of the oak grove that surrounds it. This pine might be old enough to have experienced wildfire in the distance past, before aggressive fire suppression began.

These large Ponderosa in the upper meadows enjoy deep soils and better growing conditions than the rocky Labyrinth areas, below. The large tree at center has clearly survived and been made more fire resistant in the future by losing its lowest limbs to the fire.

A closer look at this tree shows that both of its young offspring still have some green foliage, and have a chance of surviving, as well.

From the west, this towering Ponderosa at the top of the Labyrinth Trail seemed to fare reasonably well at first glance, losing a few of its lower limbs to the heat. However…

…the entire east side of its canopy burned, nearly to the top of the tree, providing an example of the ladder effect on large trees that retain limbs within the reach of fire. The fact that this tree had low limbs also suggests that it has not faced a wildland fire in its many decades of growing here, if ever. Though this tree lost at least half of its canopy, the crown is intact and the tree stands a good chance of slowly recovering over time.

A closer look at the base of this big pine shows a wide charred area where meadow perennials have haven’t bounced back. Why? This blackened area marks where a dense patch where the accumulation of understory brush and fallen debris fueled the fire long and hot enough to climb into the canopy of the big pine and kill the roots of the understory plants. This is a good example of how savannah fires can convert woodlands and brushy areas back to grassy meadows.

This group of young pine skeletons were offspring of the big pine and part of the brush and fuel buildup that put the large tree at risk. Crowded Ponderosa pine seedling colonies like these were among the hardest hit by the Burdoin Fire.

Understory Heroes

Beneath the canopy of those big keystone tree species are a multitude of shrubs, small trees, wildflowers, ferns and grasses that complete the savannah ecosystem in the East Gorge. Like the oaks and pines, these species are also well-adapted to fire, relying upon it for their periodic renewal.

This is most evident with perennial wildflowers, ferns and grasses that had already begun to emerge on charred, black slopes in a carpet of bright green, quickly sprouting from their surviving roots soon after the first fall rains arrived in September. Our mild winter (thus far) has only helped them continue to slowly grow and recover ahead of the spring growing season.

Native shrubs were also largely torched by the fire, though the roots of many survived and have also begun to regrow, renewing themselves with young vigorous stems that will replace old, woody thickets. For these plants, periodic low-intensity fire is an essential rejuvenator in the savannah environment.

Oregon grape respond well to fire, pushing brilliant, vigorous new foliage up from its roots within weeks to replace burned thickets of old stems.

These emerging Oregon grape stems are surrounded by wildflowers and grasses that are also recovering quickly throughout the Labyrinth.

Ferns in the Labyrinth are mostly dormant in the dry months, dropping their foliage when the summer drought begins, then re-emerging for the winter months when rains return in fall. This timing worked well for these Polypodium ferns, whose underground rhizomes survived the heat and are already pushing up another season of winter fronds.

The fire was hot enough in this spot to kill a thick layer of moss where it bordered a boulder in this view, yet the dormant fern rhizomes underneath survived to push up tiny new fronds once cool fall temperatures and rain showers returned to the Labyrinth.

Invasive plants are opportunistic and can take hold after fires like the Burdoin. This invasive blackberry was already here, however, and is quickly rebounding.

One of the surprising effects of fire in the East Gorge is how meadow rocks superheat from the flame, holding their heat long enough to kill the roots and seeds in the soil around them. This ring-of-death effect is common throughout the open savannah areas of the Burdoin Fire.

The moss on this large boulder tells a unique story: the fire burned low and fast here, enough to kill the moss on the 2-foot high face of the boulder, yet not sweep over it – and not hot enough to kill the roots and seeds in the soil that are already emerging.

Among the recovering shrubs is the nemesis of Gorge hikers, our native Poison oak. Beyond its toxic quality that makes it a bane to humans, this is an important understory species for wildlife who don’t mind is toxins, relying upon it for cover and forage. Deer are immune to its urushiol oil, and browse the foliage from spring through fall and its stems in winter. Birds feed on its attractive (if toxic to us!) berries. The ability of Poison oak to quickly bounce back from fire may be bad news for hikers, but it’s good news for wildlife and the health of the larger ecosystem.

If it didn’t make us itch, we’d grow it in our gardens. Useful to all but humans, these Poison oak are bouncing back with vigor from their surviving roots and underground stems. Sorry, hikers!

Two old icons…

These are two Oregon white oak giants along the Labyrinth Trail that I would be remiss if I did not report on, as they are well-known to hikers, and are truly impressive trees.

This sprawling oak (below) is not far from the trailhead, with an infamous long, horizontal limb (on the left) that is low enough to make many hikers duck as they pass under it. The trail curves under the limb, then through a gap in the rocks just behind the tree, making this a memorable spot on the trail.

This familiar oak with his head-bumping lower limb looks to have survived the fire largely intact.

Looking down the long head-bumping limb from behind the oak reveals a burn scar on the back of the trunk that will likely become a hollow someday if the tree is unable to close the wound with new bark.

A sign of new growth to come in spring, healthy, fallen leaves and fully developed acorns give reason for optimism that the head-bumping oak will leaf out once again this spring.

Like most of the fire-impacted oaks, we won’t know for sure if this big tree has survived until spring. The fire burned hot enough here to completely clear the understory and all debris, right up to the rocky outcrop beyond the tree, leaving a burn scar on the tree’s trunk in the process. However, its limbs do seem to have sprouted some late season growth, giving a hint that it will survive largely intact, ready to bump more hiker heads for years to come.

A second iconic giant is just a few dozen yards uphill from the first big oak, and it fared quite well. As you can see in this image (below), the trail served as a fire break of sorts, and this very old tree seems to be largely untouched by the flames — though the heat many have scorched some of its lower limbs that hang above the blackened area on the slope to the right.

This giant, old trailside oak seems to have survived the fire almost completely unscathed.

Had the fire reached the base of this ancient oak, it could easily have found its way into the heart of the tree, as its trunk holds numerous large cavities that are part of what make this tree so iconic.

Next up: Catherine Creek West

Part two of this 3-part series will focus on the western savannah of Catherine Creek and the Rowland Wall, an area that was hit hard by the Burdoin Fire just nine months after the Top of the World Fire had raced through. This area has a tougher story to tell, but one with important takeaways for those who love the Gorge and seek to protect this place. I’ll have this second installment posted shortly.

As always, thanks for taking the time to read this far, and for visiting the blog!

_____________

Tom Kloster | February 2026

New! Have you visited the companion WyEast Images sister blog? Have a look and be sure to subscribe while you’re there!

WyEast Images Blog..?

January 18, 2026January 19, 2026 / Tom Kloster / 6 Comments

Main page on the new WyEast Images companion blog

Finally! After months of tinkering, stalling, backpedaling, rethinking, reformatting, rebooting and a few late-night rants against the constant evolution toward more complexity of the WordPress plaform (that I use for this blog), I’ve finally started up a companion to the WyEast Blog that I have had in mind for many years. It’s called the WyEast Images Blog and it is completely dedicated to photos.

Why this and why now? Here are my motivations, in no particular order:

Image constraints: though I’ve periodically updated the blog template I use for the WyEast Blog, I’ve kept it tethered to the goal of easy reading on tablets, phones and e-mail, with an emphasis on fast downloads and small screen viewing. This has translated to relatively limited image size. The original format when I started the blog back in 2008 was especially constrained, with a maximum image width of just 350 pixels. At the time, the iPhone had barely been invented (in 2007) and the iPad had not arrived yet (it would come in 2010), so download speeds were the main driver behind those original, small images – most of us were still connecting up on low-resolution computer monitors via our phone lines in those days!

As handheld devices took over, the original 350-pixel scale worked pretty well for the screen size and resolution of those early devices, too. So, it wasn’t until 2019 that I finally updated the blog image format to fixed width of 675 pixels. While this is already smallish by today’s standards, it still looks very good on phones and tablets, in particular. Here’s a comparison of just how big a leap the change from 350 to 675 pixels was in terms of image size and resulting detail:

Original and current image formats for the WyEast Blog compared

Because the 675-pixel size is still working fairly well, I don’t see big changes coming for the WyEast Blog format on this front – if I can avoid it! Part of that is due to the legacy impact, as each time I upsize the template, the images in the original posts from 2008-2019 look increasingly like they had somehow shrunk in the wash of time (and many of these articles still get active views, surprisingly!)

Therefore, when I want include larger images (typically for maps and nerdy schematics) I end up linking to a separate file that can be viewed in greater detail. I’ve done this since the beginning with the “click here to see a large version” option for both faster overall downloading, but also because the compressed large versions don’t look that great when auto-scaled inline into the 675-pixel blog format.

This workaround has been fine for maps (and my nerdy schematics), where users can choose to open the large version and zoom in to great detail, or simply scroll past the link. However, it’s not so great for photos, and photos are my passion!

With photos, bigger really is better: Thus, the new, WyEast Images companion blog where the images are the focus (ahem!). Each post will include a single image at much larger scale with a few, hopefully succinct paragraphs providing context and significance of the image.

How much larger than images in the WyEast Blog? Images in the new blog are 1400 pixels wide, compared to just 675 pixels on this blog. Here’s another comparison of what that means for image size and resolution:

Image formats for the WyEast blog and new WyEast Images blog compared

The larger images do more justice to what I saw and felt out in WyEast Country than a small, inline image in a WyEast Blog post can offer. I also have thousands of images from a lifetime on the mountain and in the Gorge that I don’t get to share through conventional, story or issue-driven blog posts, so this is an outlet to simply enjoy these amazing places in our world.

For several years, I have been building up an archive of images on a proprietary photo hosting service (called Zenfolio) that I intended to use for this purpose, but it was clunky to administer, expensive and awkward for folks to browse if they were new to the interface. It just wasn’t working out. So, I allowed that subscription to lapse as of December 31 – which also happened to be my last day working before I retired! So, there are a couple of reasons for the “why now?” question I opened with. I finally had some precious time to get this up and running!

Supporting our photography professionals: along with the larger image format come some real reservations of publishing at this scale, as I know from my own experience that they will be vulnerable to being used without permission in the wild west that is the internet. That annoys me because, in my view, only photographers who make their living from the craft should be competing for the scarce dollars out there in the commercial market for photographic art.

I ‘m proud to count several of these talented folks as my friends, right here in WyEast Country, and they are already struggling to keep up with the torrent of “free” images that circulate on the web — largely without permission, much less compensation. The emergence of completely unregulated AI-generated imagery will only compound this problem.

This is why I am (and always will be) an amateur photographer, by definition. I never sell photos, with the caveat that I occasionally donate them for use by non-profits and sometimes public entities. To maintain this bright line, I’ve taken the added step of including a discreet signature to each image (the squiggly scrawl in example below) in the new blog to discourage re-use, along with a copyright line in each blog post – something I’ve never done on this blog, but will do in the new blog for the reasons I’ve just described. We’ll see how it goes!

I’ll keep it discreet, but the large images on the new blog will have a watermark signature

The goal of the signature is to simply to help me spot when images have been appropriated for a commercial purpose and remedy that – and hopefully to point the perpetrator to one of our fine area professionals to purchase a legitimate stock image that meets their needs.

Short reads: No surprise if you are a WyEast Blog reader, this is a long-format blog… and getting longer all the time! Therefore, the core intent of the new companion blog is to provide a side channel for you (and me) to cover WyEast topics in a text-light, image-centric format that celebrates the larger mission of the WyEast Blog: that Mount Hood and the Gorge are supremely special, and deserve better care and protection than what we give them. A simple photo can often make that case more powerfully than words are capable of.

Better Accessibility: You may have been tracking the accessibility movement on the internet in recent years, but the trend is strongly toward detailed captions for images so they may be enjoyed by visually impaired readers. Thus, each photo caption in the new blog will be followed by a detailed image description. This enhances the photo for any reader, too, as the description will often contain background information not immediately intuited from the photo.

Time travel: my personal photo archive of WyEast Country goes back decades, but I’ve also hoarded thousands of historic images that I’ll occasionally post for some real time travel. We already have the amazing Hood River History Museum’s Historic Hood River photo blog and photographer Gary Randall’s excellent “You know that you’re from ‘The Mountain’ if…” public Facebook group covering that beat, so historic posts on the new blog will be rare and hopefully complementary to these other forums when I put them up.

Navigating WyEast Images

The screenshot below shows the main page layout for the companion blog. In the left column you will find (1) the blog logo that also functions as a link back to the main page, (2) a mini-logo that links back to the WyEast Blog, (3) running list of previous posts – these can be viewed as individual pages in addition to simply scrolling the main page, and (4) a link to an “about” page that describes the purpose of the blog and its relationship to the larger Mount Hood National Park Campaign.

Layout of the main page on the new WyEast Images blog

Continuing with the above screen shot,(5) is where you can subscribe to the blog You do need to subscribe separately to the new blog if you prefer e-mail notifications, even if you subscribe to this blog. Moving to the main column on the right, new blog posts appear here, beginning with (6) a photo title with the year the photo was taken and date of the actual post (in small font), followed by a brief narrative about the photo, (7) a detailed description of the image for the visually impaired, and (8) a tiny pop-up menu for managing your subscription to the blog, buried in the lower right corner.

Like this blog, there’s a space to comment on the images when they are viewed on individual pages (by clicking on the image title). I do my best to read and respond to comments – they are always appreciated!

I’ve tested the new blog on a large monitor, tablet and smart phone. It works fine in all three cases, but the format gets clunky on a phone screen. Given the point of the blog, that’s okay with me, as phone can’t do the images justice. The new site really is designed for images to be viewed in at least some of their detailed glory. Thus, computer monitors are ideal, but I am very happy with how it loads and looks on an iPad, as well.

I know there are many iPad users that subscribe to this blog, so here’s a tip for the new WyEast Images Blog: double-tap an image to enlarge to full screen and pinch to return to the regular blog page view. It makes for very smooth scrolling.

Is this Escapism or Activism?

Both! After all, that’s one of the virtues of our public lands – as an escape from our everyday – and a call to action to protect them. That’s where the escape provides the clarity and renewed energy for activism. Works for me every time I step on a trail, and hopefully the large photos in the new blog can provide a virtual version of that feeling. It’s also true that we’re living in a particularly ugly time in our country, so the idea of simply providing an escape for a few minutes to distract with the sublime is a big motivation for me.

My hope is to capture the extraordinary beauty of WyEast Country in a way that is both an outlet from today’s often grim headlines, while inspiring that sense of ownership of the long-term legacy of Mount Hood and the Gorge that is central to caring for these places. Accordingly, photos will range from iconic, world-class destinations to the lesser-known gems and secrets that are often most at risk. The opening narrative for each photo will help tell that story.

Where to find the new blog?

If you’ve read this far, you’ve probably guessed – the new WyEast Images Blog can be found at:

wyeastimages.org

I’ve already posted a few images as part of getting the kinks out, and I hope to add an image every week or so – more, if I’m able to. We’ll see how it goes!

Thanks for reading, and as always, thanks for caring about WyEast Country!

________________

Tom Kloster | January 2026

Goodbye to an old friend… or is it?

January 1, 2026 / Tom Kloster / 8 Comments

The old tree looking splendid last spring on its perch high above the Columbia River, looking eastward

Among the victims of the July’s Burdoin Fire in the East Gorge was a venerable Ponderosa pine that had clung to life for many decades on an exposed basalt shelf, high atop the cliffs of Rowland Wall. For years, it has been like an old friend to hikers passing this scenic overlook along the West Catherine Creek loop.

The July fire swept through less than a year after the Top of the World fire burned across the Catherine Creek area in October 2024. The old pine had managed to dodge that earlier event, and likely others before it, but the low-slung tree was completely overwhelmed by this year‘s blaze.

Ponderosa pines are built for fire, and have evolved to rely upon it. They’re part of the fire forest ecosystem on the east slopes of the Cascades, where they are a keystone species. Yet, their natural defenses of thick, fire-resistant bark and a high crown that extends beyond the reach of periodic fires couldn’t save this stunted old Ponderosa. That’s because extreme Gorge winds and exposure to winter ice and snow had transformed what might have been a towering, 90-foot tree into a contorted Krumholtz, natures inspiration for the ancient art of Bonsai.

The old tree (and it’s offspring, on the left) also enjoyed a fine view downriver to Mount Hood

Ancient, sculpted trees like these have inspired humans for millennia, and it’s easy to see why. Their heroic efforts to adapt, their ability to somehow survive in unbearably harsh conditions and their sheer longevity lend a spiritual nature to these remarkable living things. The further fact that their lifespans in these harshest of conditions still exceeds ours by decades, and even centuries, only adds to their intrigue and fascination. Their fantastic, battered shapes tell a story about their survival like no other living thing,

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I had a pretty good idea the old tree had been killed since viewing it from a far ridge several weeks ago. When I finally approached it up-close on the trail in mid-December, its grim fate was unavoidable. The old tree was gone. Only a totally charred skeleton remained.

First glimpse of the old tree’s fate – a blackened skeleton on its lonely clifftop

Up close, you could see exactly what happened. Though blackened, most of the old, bleached deadwood on the tree had survived, yet the entire canopy had been torched and bark boiled off the living sections of its trunk and limbs. It must have been an incredibly hot firestorm when the fire rolled over the rocky shelf, though it didn’t linger enough to completely consume the tree.

As you can see in the opening photos, there wasn’t much fuel on the ground to feed the fire for very long here, suggesting that a tremendous wave of wind-blown flames simply rolled across this ridge and continued eastward.

Though blackened, much of the deadwood on the tree didn’t fully burn, suggesting a very fast, very hot fire rolling through

The old tree had originally taken on its reclining shape when it was tipped over by strong winds long ago, yet it survived by virtue of a few intact roots on the lee side that continued to sustain it until now. Once tipped, two of its side limbs emerged as a pair of new replacement leaders, forming the new crown. The surviving roots that kept the tree alive were suspended above ground, however, and remained highly vulnerable to fire.

The little offspring of the old tree also perished in the fire, a common fate for young Ponderosa, and one that the species have adapted to. Fires help thin stands of crowded seedlings, creating our familiar Ponderosa parklands on the east slope of the Cascades

Grassland fires normally brown but don’t actually burn green needles on Ponderosa pine. The Burdoin Fire was so hot that it fully torched the needles on this old tree, completely burning them away in a flash.

This old Ponderosa was likely approaching a century in age, perhaps older. From this isolated ledge above the river, it probably witnessed the highways being built and the slack water ponding behind Bonneville Dam. It survived at least one major fire in its lifetime, though likely more. Fires are common here. This tough little tree survived numerous droughts and undoubtedly a few close lightning strikes, too. More recently, it survived a wave of beetle invasions that killed many healthy Ponderosa pine in the gorge.

For the past few decades, the West Catherine Creek loop trail has curved around this old tree, bringing it into new prominence and appreciation by hundreds of hikers who pass by each year and considered it a friend. Even its nearby neighbor (below), another picturesque, sculpted old tree along the trail, was killed by the fire, its top snapping off after the heart of the main trunked burned away from lingering fire.

This neighboring Ponderosa survivor also succumbed to the blaze, though in this case it was the adjacent supply of dry, downed wood you can see in this view from March 2025 that sealed this trees fate by burning longer and hotter here

The scorched earth surrounding the skeleton of the neighboring Ponderosa shows just how hot and long the fire burned here, thanks to the fuel lying around the tree. The fire burned long enough her to hollow the tree and topple its crown

While it’s hard to say goodbye to these old trees, losing them serves as a needed reminder of what is at stake on our public lands. Fires are becoming more frequent and more destructive, and the large majority are caused by humans. Like any human-caused fire, this didn’t need to happen, nor can our forests keep up with the pace of human-caused fires with the changes in climate we are experiencing. Losing trees like these before their time also means depriving future generations the chance to appreciate as we have been privileged to.

Oddly, the tall Ponderosas growing at the base of Rowland Wall escaped the fire entirely, just a few dozen yards from trees that were completely torched on the exposed rim. This could be their isolation on rocky talus slopes, or it could simply be how strong winds moved the fire through the area. The Burdoin Fire is presumed to be human-caused and began at the left base of the far ridge in this view, along Highway 14

It’s human nature to be sentimental when losing old survivors like these, though nature has no such attachment. In nature, there is a certain randomness when ancient trees are finally lost to fire, drought or disease that is beyond our human ability to fully understand, much less accept. They seem so tough and immortal — and yet we know they are irreplaceable, too, and therefore incredibly fragile.

Just down the rim from the old Ponderosa, that randomness of nature spared a spectacularly gnarled Oregon white oak (below). If the old Ponderosa was stooped, this old oak is downright crawling. Its limbs grow no more than two fee from the ground, yet it stretches nearly twenty feet in length, with a 10-inch trunk! Had the fire swept through it, it wouldn’t have survived. Yet, through that same randomness of the wildfire event, it will live to produce acorns for another season.

Like the old Ponderosa neighbor that lived just up the ridge, this old oak was tipped at some point, yet survived. It now grows as a flattened krummholz in this very windy, exposed meadow

With its bare winter limbs and bleached, gnarled trunk, this old oak could be mistaken for one of the many killed trees, save for the telltale unburned summer grasses that mark this as an unburned area. Like its Ponderosa neighbor just up the ridge, the beauty of this tree is in the story of perseverance and survival under the harshest of conditions that its contorted shape tells. That story is still told even after these old survivors have finally succumbed to the elements, when their skeletons slowly fade away in the dry, desert landscape.

Embracing their continuum

On the next ridge to the east, across the Catherine Creek canyon, another gnarled Ponderosa pine (two photos, below) lost its battle to survive before the recent fires raced through in 2024 and 2025. Its sun-bleached skeleton managed to dodge both fires, or it would be completely gone today. This old tree’s top lies on the ground, a few feet from its trunk, likely blown off by a lightning strike that also might have killed the tree. Lighting is a real threat for lone trees growing out in the open savannah of the East Gorge.

This old Ponderosa skeleton dodged both recent fires and still stands to tell a story of survival on this windy slope

This old skeleton is still sturdy, will likely stand for at least few more years, barring more wildfires. Its battered trunk still has some bark attached, and old snags like these can persist for decades in this environment. And, just as we are learning to appreciate the bleached ghost forests on Mount Hood for their own stark beauty, these old skeletons in the Gorge can be newly appreciated for their sculptured forms and they survival stories they continue to tell.

Winter storms battered the old tree in life and as a skeleton. This view is looking west, toward the Cascades and an approaching December squall

The part that comes less naturally for us is how these old trees embrace their larger continuum so gracefully. From a seed germinating in rocky Gorge soils, to becoming a mature tree, drawing water and minerals from the soil to grow and sustain a green canopy and produce seeds, and then eventually dying and decaying to become part of the rocky soil, once again. In our very own short lives, we focus on the living part, but for the Ponderosa pine and Oregon white oak trees of the east Gorge, the larger continuum is the point.

About a half mile downhill from the lightning snag is yet another Ponderosa skeleton (below) that has finally tipped over, after its roots had decayed and the Gorge winds had become too much to bear. Hundreds of hikers pass this tree carcass every year, though few take note of the story this old skeleton has to tell. This stunted survivor was only 10 feet tall when it was living, and yet its trunk was a foot thick. It was probably 75-100 years old when it finally it lost the battle to the elements, yet in life it likely produced some of the offspring that have now become the surviving Ponderosa pine in the distance.

This stunted old Ponderosa Pine snag finally toppled, and now provides shelter and food for a young (leafless in this winter view) Oregon white oak seen poking up from behind

Even as its skeleton lies on the ground, rotting in this final stage of the continuum, the remains of old tree are providing a sheltered spot for a young Oregon white oak to get its start. Its decaying trunk is habitat for burrowing bugs and rodents, including a ground squirrel who stowed the acorn that sprouted to become the young oak. These residents of the old tree are helping to further break down the remaining wood into fine organic matter that feeds the little oak and a drift of wildflowers that have clustered around the skeleton.

Bugs and rodents are active inside the toppled snag, helping to dismantle it to become part of the soil, once again

When we think of trees through a human lens, we focus on their survival as a means to simply reproduce for another year. But what if trees are mostly taking the longer view, using their ability (and apparent will) to survive to an old age as a means to produce and store as much organic matter as they can manage before they die, thereby creating new habitat and building the soil for the offspring of their offspring’s offspring? Why wouldn’t living things capable of surviving for centuries have this longer continuum as their greatest purpose?

Then, just imagine how different our lives would be if our every thought was grounded in providing for our grandchildren’s children’s children. Imagine how different our world would be!

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Looking ahead in the New Year…

As of today, I have retired after 40 years in public service! It has been a great journey, but I’m now looking ahead to a lot more time on the trail, various writing and advocacy projects, and (of course) more time volunteering for Trailkeepers of Oregon (TKO) in this new year. I’ve been looking forward to this chapter in life!

The (now reired!) author blending in nicely with bleached, gnarled old trees in the East Gorge…

As always, I appreciate you stopping by to read a long-form blog in the era of Tik-Tok videos and YouTube Shorts, and especially for your patience during the periodic dry spells in the blog over the past couple years. I plan to improve on that in 2026! Thank you for caring about WyEast Country, too. I know you may not always agree with what I post here, but I also know you love this place just as much as I do, and I appreciate the space to say what’s on my mind in that very generous spirit.

Next up in this new year? I’m working on a series of articles looking at the Burdoin Fire impact and recovery in depth. There is so much to learn from our wildfires! I’ve also got a couple surprises that I’ve been working on, including an overdue proposal to make the Timberline Trail a lot better for the hundreds (thousands?) who complete that classic around-the-mountain trek each year.

In the meantime, I hope to see you on the trail somewhere!

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Tom Kloster | New Years Day 2026

WyEast Blog News!

December 6, 2025 / Tom Kloster / 6 Comments

What AI thinks of the WyEast Blog of late…. uncanny accuracy!

The crickets are chirping and (AI-generated) tumbleweeds are rolling around the WyEast Blog this fall, so I thought I’d post an overdue update: the blog lives! Just a bit behind on posts.

First off, some personal news: I’ll be retiring after 40 years in public service at the end of this month! I surely never planned to work this long, but I’ve been gifted with a job I love, an amazing agency to be part of for 33 of those years and with a team of co-workers who have become like family, many whom I have worked with for decades. Most every day is rewarding and fun, and for that I feel stupid fortunate!

Young punk in the 90s in luxury window cube…. This was weekend attire, by the way. The internet hadn’t been invented just yet, so working overtime mean a trip into the office, typically on Saturday mornings. Lots of museum pieces on my desk – notably, Kodak slide trays and a preview carrousel projector on the far right that we called R2D2. Fancy cassette/CD boombox on the shelf (probably playing Everclear or Green Day… it was the 90!) and a Macintosh Centris computer on the desk.

However, sometime early this year I knew the time was right. I’ll be 64 in January, after all! Mainly, it was the fact that I’ve been able to bring a new tier of diverse, talented young professionals onboard since COVID amid the “great resignation”, making it much easier to hand off the baton and step aside. The luxury of an orderly succession in these times has been profoundly rewarding, knowing that the future of the organization I care so much about is in great hands!

Old fart reprising the previous 90s pose in my old cube for a photo-op a few weeks ago. CRT monitors have long since given way to flat screens and I don’t think the younger workers could identify a slide tray if I were to put one in their hands. The building was completely remodeled after COVID to a “hoteling” format with no formal offices. Today, most workers (myself included) working a hybrid schedule of telework/in-person days. It’s a brave new work office world!

The race toward retirement over the past few months has been a hectic transition for my team at work, but to spice things up, my wife and I kicked off the second phase of a major home renovation we started during COVID, and that has been in the works since we bought house more than 33 years ago. The timing wasn’t the intended plan, as we started working on the design way back in January, but it has combined with my retirement sprint to create a perfect storm of (muddy) chaos on the home front.

Foundation forms for a kitchen addition to our old 1944 house in North Portland. Project completion is scheduled for February!

A saving grace is that much of the work that I’m contributing to the project (interior painting, casing and trimming windows and doors, installing pantry cabinets and building a new back porch… it’s a long list!) begins in January, in tandem with my retirement. I can’t say that was well-planned, but it turned out to be fortuitous timing.

Looking ahead to retirement, my plans include MUCH more time on endeavors like this blog. plus time up on the Mountain and in the Gorge, of course. I continue to serve on the board for Trailkeepers of Oregon (TKO) and have various projects I’m involved in on that front that I’m looking forward to leaning into, as well.

On that note, I’ll close with my annual calendars, as all proceeds go straight to TKO. This year I’ve branched out a bit, with dual calendars. First up, the 23^rd edition of the Mount Hood National Campaign calendar, featuring the view from Gnarl Ridge on the cover for 2026:

2026 Mount Hood Calendar cover

And for something a bit different, I’ve also created an Oregon High Desert calendar:

2025 Oregon High Desert Calendar cover

The desert calendar is a bit of a preview of my retirement, as I began making what I call my “old man in the desert” trips in spring and fall each year since COVID in what was initially an effort to simply isolate and avoid crowds. These trips ignited an old passion for Oregon’s Outback that remains strong for me, and thus the collection of photos for this calendar. I’m already planning my spring “old man in the desert” escape!

Both calendars measure 11×14″ and are printed on glossy, high quality stock. They are available on my Zazzle store at the link below — including full previews of the monthly images:

Tom’s Mount Hood and Oregon Desert Calendars

Zazzle ships relatively quickly, so if you’re looking for stocking stuffers, these should arrive by the holidays if ordered in the next week or two. You can also ship them direct as gifts from the Zazzle store!

Squaring the circle after 18 years! The USFS gave TKO the green light to add our field guide trail map and info about upcoming volunteer stewardship opportunities on the Vista Ridge and Old Vista Ridge trail at their shared trailhead this summer. This comes after (ahem!) an unauthorized rescue of the Old Vista Ridge Trail that began way back in 2007, an effort that eventually allowed this beautiful old trail to be officially recognized by the USFS, once again. Today, TKO has an ongoing agreement to maintain both trails annually.

So there’s my mea culpa for the tumbling tumbleweeds around here. Happily, I have many articles in the queue for 2026 (and beyond) and can’t wait to begin working on them full-time as a retired person! In the meantime, my very best to those who follow this blog and, as always…

…I hope to see you on the trail sometime!

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Tom Kloster | December 2025

Fire-free Mount Hood Wilderness?

August 31, 2025 / Tom Kloster / 7 Comments

The ancient Whitebark pines on Gnarl Ridge have managed to dodge wildfires for centuries through their rugged isolation, but can they survive our wilderness campfires?

Fire season was off to an ominous start this year with the Rowena and Burdoin fires sweeping across hundreds of acres of oak and pine savannah in the Gorge, destroying several homes. Yet, these early fires were a bit of an anomaly. Thus far, at least. We enjoyed a healthy, lingering snowpack in the Cascades this summer, and despite a late-August heat wave and the fires currently burning in sagebrush country east of the mountains, we’ve had a mostly cooler summer that seems more like 1980s than our overheated summers of today.

I’ve pointed this out to a fair number of younger hikers on the trail this summer while crossing rejuvenated snowfields on the Timberline Trail in early August. Until sometime around 2000, when the effects of climate change seemed to be visibly escalating, this is what summers were like here: a three-month drought with a couple heat waves, to be sure, but mostly moderate temperatures and even a few wet summer storms to break up the dry spell.

Our unexpected respite from extreme heat this year could also blunt the severity of our annual wildfire season, though it bears remembering that some of our most destructive firestorms have happened in September.

Not out of the woods with our fire season, just yet. The human-caused Riverside Fire started on September 8, 2020 and eventually burned 138,000 acres of the Clackamas River basin over the following weeks, much of the burn hot enough to create ghost forests where nothing survived. This scene looking into the Whale Creek basin is one of those places.

If we do make it past this Labor Day weekend without catastrophic fires in the Cascades – the five-year anniversary of the catastrophic fires that swept through in 2020 — odds are good that we will have enjoyed an unearned break this year in an otherwise non-stop era of major wildland fires. The emphasis should be on unearned, however, as we’re not making nearly enough progress in achieving a sustainable balance of healthy, beneficial fires in our forests.

Instead, we’ve catapulted from a century of unhealthy fire suppression and unsustainable forestry into the unhappy payback: a modern era of destructive, catastrophic fires fueled by the combined effects of fire suppression and overcrowded clearcut plantations in a rapidly warming climate. Add in a climate-denying administration in Washington DC that seems bent on somehow turning our collective clock back to 1955, and we’re losing ground fast on what otherwise could be a manageable crisis.

So, yes. There’s plenty of room for frustration and discouragement with the current state of affairs. But there are also encouraging signs that a return to more enlightened times has already begun, and the pendulum is beginning to swing toward science sustainability, once again. With that in mind, and in the spirit of “planning for good times during the bad”, this piece focuses on simple actions that we could take locally to help slow some of the momentum of a wildland fire cycle that is burning our forests faster than they can recover.

“We have met the enemy….”

You would be hard-pressed to find anyone under the age of 40 who knows what the “Sunday funnies” is (or was), much less Walt Kelly’s wise possum named Pogo. On the first Earth Day in 1970, Kelly produced a poster with the now-famous “we have met the enemy and he is us” strip, a play on a lesser-known military quote dating back to the War of 1812. Pogo’s version resonated, and Walt Kelly repeated it in this strip published on the second Earth Day, in 1971:

Pogo was right…

We’ve made real progress on environmental pollution since then, but Pogo’s observation could easily apply to our current wildfire crisis. Here’s a stunning statistic: research from the U.S. Forest Service in 2020 estimated that nearly 85 percent of wildland fires are caused by humans! That’s obviously an unacceptable number. The list of human causes? Campfires and debris burning are at the top of the list, followed by sparks from heavy equipment, fireworks and discarded cigarettes (arson is surprisingly high on the list – something to research for a future article?)

Campfires are the overwhelming human cause of wildfires

On our public lands, debris burning (as in logging slash) and sparks from heavy equipment mostly fall into the realm of logging and road construction, off-road vehicles and gas chainsaws used for firewood gathering. If you narrow the focus to human-caused fires that begin in our protected wilderness and backcountry areas, the list becomes much shorter: campfires, discarded cigarettes and (rarely) fireworks.

Narrowing a bit further to something we can tackle right here in WyEast Country, this article will focus on campfires within the protected Mount Hood Wilderness, and the surprising lack of restrictions on them. Few even know there are restrictions, but if someone were inclined to look it up, the list of places where campfires are prohibited on Mount Hood is puzzling, at best. Here’s the complete regulation:

Mount Hood Wilderness regulations on campfires (USFS)

First, some context: TKO’s Wilderness Ambassadors are counting in excess of 300 people heading to Paradise Park on the Timberline Trail each day on summer weekends this year – and that’s just one of the gateway points into the wilderness. Even if you assume that some meaningful share of the tens of thousands who enter the Mount Hood Wilderness are aware of campfire restrictions, these rules still seem random and confusing.

How would the average person know how far “500 feet from the McNeil Point Shelter”, or a “half-mile from Burnt Lake” is? What’s a “tree-covered island” versus a grove of trees at Elk Cove and Elk Meadows? The last rule is especially puzzling, though it seems to describe a near-total ban at Paradise Park. Add in the ever-shrinking number of Forest Service rangers available to patrol the Mount Hood Wilderness, and it’s hard to believe these restrictions are having any real impact as written, however well-intended.

Making the case: Protecting the wilderness experience

Though seemingly random, the places on Mount Hood called out in the campfire ban is instructive. These are all heavily-visited places where the increased wildlife risk of campfires is compounded by a degraded wilderness experience. It’s a compelling argument that anyone who has visited these places over time can testify to, as the human impacts are all-too apparent in each of the spots listed – and getting worse.

Once the cutting starts, it’s hard to stop. This butchered Whitebark pine had the misfortune of taking root near the Cooper Spur Shelter, perhaps before shelter and Timberline Trail even existed. It was still living as recently as 2020 (when these fresh cuts had been made), even as novice hikers continued hacking it apart for firewood too green to even burn

That’s why impacts on the human experience are a great starting point in making the case for a more effective, comprehensive campfire ban within the Mount Hood Wilderness. After all, much of the wilderness is very heavily visited, and many other popular spots face the same pressures as those few included in the current campfire ban. If visible impact from heavy use is the criterion, the Forest Service has simply lagged behind in adding to this list.

So, where to start in expanding the list? How about the entirety of Elk Cove and Elk Meadows, not simply the “tree islands”? And what about Cairn Basin, Eden Park and WyEast Basin? Or the rest of the Timberline Trail corridor for that matter? If you were to add every spot along the trail where campsites overflow with backpackers each summer, the dots on the map would quickly merge, making the case for a total ban. It’s simply too complex to describe or enforce a nuanced campfire ban with today’s widespread visitor pressure across so much of the Mount Hood Wilderness. Everything inside the wilderness boundary deserves this protection.

Making the case: A rogue’s gallery of wilderness campfires

I’ve lost track of how many ill-conceived campfire rings that I’ve decommissioned within the Mount Hood Wilderness over the years, but it is an ongoing and increasingly frustrating task. Most of these were not strictly banned under the Forest Service restrictions described above, but they very clearly violated basic “leave no trace” ethics. Worse, they were typically left smoldering, almost always because they had been built in a place too far from a water source to be safely extinguished. So, the campers simply walked away, leaving the seeds for a human-caused wilderness fire to chance. This rogue’s gallery is a sampler of what we are up against:

Not even a fire ring here, just a campfire built on top of the underbrush and forest duff layer along the Newton Creek Trail. It’s dumb luck this fire didn’t spread – likely due to fortuitous wet weather arriving that fall. Note the half-burned limbs left in the pit – how long did they smolder before the rains put this fire out?

This fire had been built on top of Bald Mountain, more than a mile from the nearest water source. It is typical of new campfires in the Mount Hood Wilderness. Lacking a saw, campers simply burned the ends of uncut logs and limbs, often several feet in length. With no fire ring, even the small limbs are spilling out of the campfire, in effect creating lit fuses for this fire to spread to the dry forest duff in all directions – as it already had when I took to photo. The half-burned stump adds to the risk, as it could smolder for days without being properly extinguished.

Another new firepit that had been recently built on a dry ridge top on the east side of the mountain, more than a mile from any water source. It was left smoldering, along with burned trash and (circled) cigarette butts that weren’t even dropped into the fire pit – checking two boxes for this fire on the list of most common causes

Amid the half-burned wood and charred foil, fire has a small orange flag you might have seen in heavily used fire pits during fire season…

…upon closer inspection, they turn out to be temporary bans put in effect during extreme fire risk. Placing these requires intensive wilderness staff capacity, though, and with no clear penalty identified for violators, are they even be heeded?

As some of these detailed captions show, new fire rings usually betray their builders. Almost aways, they contain burned foil, cans and melted plastic that a seasoned, knowledgeable backcountry visitor would never leave behind. Half-burned (and often green) firewood is the other giveaway, usually chopped with a hatchet that few experienced hikers would carry. They are also typically built on top of the flammable forest duff layer, instead of an area cleared to bare, mineral soil.

Smoldering, abandoned campfires don’t always put out a lot of smoke, even when they’re still very hot. This video is from a fire left burning in the Badger Creek Wilderness in the middle of August, far from any water source. Doubly frustrating was using much of my water supply on that hot day to put out a careless campfire…

The next photo set in this rogue’s gallery is a case study of the historic Cooper Spur stone shelter on the Timberline Trail, where misguided campfires are a recurring problem. The shelter draws regular overnight campers who, in turn, have built several rock wall windbreaks around tent sites. Not exactly “no trace”, but also not unusual on the mountain. In this case, they must also be viewed in the context of being next to a man-made stone shelter. The hand of man prominent here, however rustic.

Camping among the rocks at the Cooper Spur shelter has become increasingly common in recent years, thanks in large part to social media, and helping to drive the increase in campfires here

However, there is no water source anywhere near the shelter, so it’s not an ideal camping spot. It’s an even worse place to build campfires. Most campers at the shelter do abide by this obvious ethic, but the few who don’t leave a permanent record of their visit for all who follow in this very popular place. That’s because, beyond the lack of water to reasonably extinguish a fire, there’s also a lack of firewood… except for the federally-listed, threatened Whitebark pines that cling to life here, at nearly 7,000 feet elevation.

I’ve decommissioned many campfires here since unofficially adopting some trails in the area nearly 25 years ago. All of these campfires were perfectly legal under the current Forest Service rules, but also completelyunethical from a “leave no trace” perspective. They also fail simple common sense, given the obvious lack of a nearby water source to put them out.

To put a face on this ongoing struggle, here are some of the rogue campfires that I’ve decommissioned at the Cooper Spur shelter in recent years:

This fire ring has been rebuilt against a boulder, directly in front of the shelter – a favorite location for the campfire builders

A closer look at the 2014 fire ring. The boulder is charred from many fires built here, but the rest of this ring was new, as you can see by the mostly uncharred, smaller rocks

Fuel piled next to the 2014 fire ring includes green limbs pulled from a nearby Whitebark pine, typical signs of a novice

In the intervening years since these photos were taken in 2014, I’ve disassembled and decommissioned this fire ring repeatedly, as the charred boulder seems to attract ever more campfire building at this spot. However, this year things seemed to escalate sharply. This was the scene in late July:

Three campfires – within a few feet of one another? The fire ring on the far left was built in the middle of the trail, the one below on the left was built (once again) against the same boulder shown in the 2014 photos and the fire pit in the lower right was also new – the first in this spot. A large stack of Whitebark Pine limbs, both dead and living, are piled over on the right

A closer look at the new ring built in the middle of the trail shows half-burned Whitebark pine limbs and an attempt to extinguish the fire by piling rocks on top.

A closer look at the new ring shows the rock source to be the recently collapsed corner of the Cooper Spur Shelter – those are mortar traces attached to the rock in this photo. Pure vandalism to use these rocks before they could be to repair the shelter, of course

Decommissioning all three of these fire rings at the Cooper Spur shelter meant carrying at least a dozen gallon-size ziplock bags of (cold) ashes to dump in a discrete spot, moving all of the visibly charred rocks from the area and covering up what was left with a light dusting of loose gravel. However, the char marks left on the large boulder in this newest fire location will be there for many years to come, likely encouraging more fires here so long as they are legal.

This was among the charred Whitebark pine logs scattered from the three fires, apparently in an attempt to put the fire out? This log was cut with a hatchet, another telltale sign of a novice camper

What’s left of this Whitebark pine near the three new fire pits at the shelter shows signs of limbs being sawed, chopped or simply broken off. The stumps still have their bark, so it’s unclear if this was a living tree when it was targeted for firewood

While it has been a frustrating rinse-and-repeat cycle to continually undo these fire rings, it’s also informative. They point to wilderness visitors who require very simple, understandable and enforceable regulations. Even if the area around the shelter were added to the current list of banned places on the Forest Service list, the campfires would almost certainly continue, given the lack of awareness of where fires are prohibited in the wilderness.

Making the case: Current rules aren’t working

In researching this article, I spoke to several seasoned hikers who have been visiting the Mount Hood Wilderness for many years. Even among this veteran cohort there was tremendous confusion and misinformation about the restrictions that do exist, or even where to find them. Some were adamant that campfires were already banned “above the Timberline Trail”, while others believed the ban was “above the timberline”. None could name all of the place-specific bans described in the actual policy, and most could only name one or two. This level of misinformation among the most experienced hikers bodes poorly for the thousands of less-savvy visitors to the wilderness each year might know.

Today’s wilderness hikers on Mount Hood rely more on social media and third-party phone apps for their trail information than on official web content from public agencies, making it increasingly challenging to communicate rules and restrictions

The lack of awareness and understanding of the existing campfire ban is easy to diagnose. First, the official Mount Hood National Forest website is labyrinth, and it’s especially tough to navigate if you’re looking for recreation information. When I Googled “Mount Hood Wilderness”, only the unhelpful Mount Hood National Forest home page and generic “recreation” page showed up in the top 20 search results. Both are dead-ends.

The crucial link for wilderness information (including campfire regulations) is found elsewhere on the website, on a page describing all of the wilderness areas within the national forest – a page Google did not find with a search for “Mount Hood Wilderness.” From this page, the link to information on regulations for the Mount Hood Wilderness is buried in a text blurb that contains a link to this external website describing the campfire policy.

Even a specific Google search for “Mount Hood Wilderness Regulations” takes you to the generic wilderness page for all wilderness areas, where you would still need to track down the buried link to the external page that actually lists the regulations. Few will ever find this information, unfortunately – including Google’s search engine. Google’s AI-powered search provided an even more confusing result, reporting a complete ban on wilderness campfires (!) followed by a partial mention of the actual policy (only for McNeil Point and Ramona Falls):

Google AI not so intelligent when it comes to finding USFS regulations…

So, the internet isn’t much help in tracking down the existing campfire regulations. However, the current ban is clearly described at wilderness trailheads around Mount Hood – if you look closely – along with general guidelines on wilderness ethics, including no-trace ethics campfires.

These are the trailhead signs at the Cloud Cap trailhead, the entry point for the Cooper Spur Shelter, and the standard signboard format for most wilderness trailheads on Mount Hood:

There’s a lot of information at Mount Hood’s wilderness access points. Look closely at this sign at the Cloud Cap trailhead and you might find the limited restrictions on campfires (circled)…

…and a closer view of the campfire restrictions from the above wilderness trailhead sign. The wording here is simplified from the official regulations, yet still quite nuanced for visitors unfamiliar with the wilderness

A second sign at the Cloud Cap wilderness trailhead provides still more information for visitors. The two arrows point to additional info on campfires…

…this enlarged view of the inset on the upper right calls for “minimizing” (highlight added) campfire impacts under the Leave No Trace (LNT) principles…

…and the inset on the left side of the second trailhead sign lists special rules for wilderness, including “cutting or otherwise damaging timber, tree or other forest product” (highlight added)

The current, limited campfire ban is also posted on the back of required wilderness permits, which are required at the Mount Hood Wilderness entry points (except this year, unfortunately, due to Forest Service staff cuts):

There it is! The red arrow points to the Mount Hood Wilderness regulations printed in full on the back of the permit

A closer look at the permit shows a nearly complete version of the existing, limited campfire ban within the Mount Hood Wilderness, albeit slightly simplified from the online, official version

So, the regulations are certainly available enough where it matters – at the trailhead. But the fact that so few know or understand them suggests they aren’t really being read by wilderness visitors – whether on the entry signboards or on the back of permits. That’s likely a case of information overload (there is a lot to read on these signs) and human nature (does anyone really read instructions before assembly..?) Add the complexity of the regulation, and it translates into a policy that is not only too limited in its geographic scope, but also in its effective communication to wilderness visitors.

Making the case: Protecting human life and property

Do the risks and impacts that campfires present at the Cooper Spur Shelter and elsewhere in the Mount Hood Wilderness warrant a total ban on campfires? Thirty or forty years ago, my answer would have been “no”. But the current state of our forests and changing climate doesn’t leave us the luxury to be romantic or sentimental about campfires.

Cloud Cap Inn covered in red fire retardant during the Gnarl Fire in 2008. This historic, priceless 1889 gem narrowly survived the event (USFS)

Cloud Cap area transforming into a massive ghost forest of bleached snags in 2010, two years after the Gnarl Fire

We’ve seen a string of three major fires in the Mount Hood Wilderness in recent years that have completely altered the forests on the north and east slopes of the mountain: the Bluegrass Fire (2006), Gnarl Fire (2008) the Dollar Lake Fire (2011) all burned hot across thousands of acres of subalpine Noble fir, Mountain hemlock and Western larch at an unsustainable pace, leaving large expanses of ghost forest that are only beginning to regenerate today.

None of these fires were human-caused, surprisingly. But there’s little comfort to be found there, given the number of people who visit the wilderness each year – and the number unattended, smoldering campfires they leave behind.

It’s also only a matter of time before similar wildfires return to the south and west sides of the mountain, where a century of fire suppression has left these forests primed for a major fire. And the risk to property and human life on the south side of the mountain is far more significant. Early photos like those below show the extent of the most recent fires to rage through today’s Government Camp area in the decades before the completion of the Mount Hood Loop Highway in the 1920s, and the subsequent flood of ski resorts, Forest Service cabin leases and homes on private land that followed.

This view of the Government Camp area from Multorpor Fen before much development had occurred on the mountain. The arrows point to the ghost forests that marked widespread burns across what are now heavily developed ski resorts and private homes on Mount Hood’s south flank. After more than a century since these fires burned through, the south side of the mountain is primed for a major wildfire

While the surge in recent wildfires on Mount Hood has focused on the east and north sides of the mountain, the west and south sides were the main focus of wildfires in the early 1900s. This view is of Mirror Lake in about 1900, when much of the area south of today’s US 26 had burned in the Kinzel fire

This later view of Mirror Lake from the 1920s shows little forest recovery – and the beginning of what is now more than a century of camping — and campfires

The risk to human life and property only grows as you move to the Zigzag Mountain arm of the wilderness. Zigzag Mountain comprises a complex of forested ridges and peaks that extends ten miles west from Paradise Park on Mount Hood to the community of Zigzag, where the Zigzag and Sandy River valleys converge. Zigzag Mountain and much of the surrounding area burned repeatedly in the early 1900s, long before there were thousands of people living in forest homes along both rivers and scores of businesses had located along this section of the Mount Hood Loop Highway.

The view from Devils Peaks in the 1930s looked much different than today. The peak, itself, had recently been burned over in the Kinzel and Sherar fires, while the area north along Zigzag Mountain was also burned in a series of very large fires in 1904 and 1910 – including the Burnt Lake Fire

[click here for a large version of the Zigzag Mountain infographic]

While it is inevitable that wildfires will someday sweep through these areas again, igniting one with an unattended, smoldering wilderness campfire doesn’t have to be the cause. And while the Zigzag Mountain portion of the Mount Hood Wilderness is less busy with visitors, the human and property risks from wilderness campfires here are far greater because of the proximity to developed areas immediately adjacent to the wilderness.

Making the case: Protecting the Whitebarks

Protecting human life and property is deservedly the driver in wildfire management, but on Mount Hood, the impact of wilderness campfires extends to our threatened Whitebark pines. I described both their significance as a keystone species and plight in this article several years ago. These are trees worth protecting.

Their ability to thrive in extreme, high elevation environments is part of their secret to dodging forest fires. The ancient groves of Whitebark on the mountain are often so isolated and scattered in their alpine setting that fires racing through the more continuous subalpine forests far below have repeatedly missed them simply because they were out of reach from the flames.

This advantage was borne out again with the recent fires on the east and north sides of the mountain, where the flames seemed to die out as they reached the tree line, well short of many of the ancient Whitebark groves. Their remote habitat is not out of our reach, however — or the impact of our campfires.

This unlucky Whitebark pine has been harvested down to a stump for firewood at the Cooper Spur Shelter

The campfire threat to Whitebarks comes from being hacked apart for scarce firewood this far above the tree line. However, Mountain hemlock and other subalpine species are continuing to spread upward in elevation in our warming climate, infiltrating the once isolated Whitebark Pine groves, and thus increasing their exposure to wildfire.

Mature limbs from Whitebark pine in a large fire pit on the summit of Lookout Mountain, in the Badger Creek Wilderness

There is also an important aesthetic argument for caring about our Whitebarks. While you can’t place a dollar value on the visual and emotional impact of seeing a massive, ancient Whitebark pine in the wild, for most of us it is an awe-inspiring sight. Their contorted shape and especially their bleached bones tell a story of remarkable survival – but they can also provide senseless firewood to a few campers who don’t know any better.

These ancient Whitebark pine skeletons are as beautiful and dramatic as they are vulnerable: the fire pit in the previous image is just a few yards beyond this grove

Beyond our human impact on these trees, Whitebark pine are experiencing a massive die-off across the West from a invasive diseases, insect infestations and worsening drought episodes driven by climate change. This has led them to be federally listed as a threatened species. Given their plight and importance, Whitebark pine may be the best reason for a total campfire ban in the Mount Hood Wilderness.

Whitebark pine along the Timberline Trail selected for seed harvesting in a Forest Service project to help save the species

Seed collection bags on one of Mount Hood’s selected Whitebark pines for genetic research

Since the 1990s, scientists at Mount Hood National Forest have been part of the national recovery effort for Whitebarks, where seeds are being collected from disease resistant trees for propagation to help replace groves where widespread die-offs have occurred in recent years. For more information on this effort, check out the Whitebark Pine Ecosystem Foundation, a leader in the effort to rescue this unique species.

All of these arguments – the threats to our remaining forests, to human life and property and to the Whitebarks — bring me to the conclusion that now is the time for a complete ban on campfires within the Mount Hood Wilderness. No exceptions. Just a simple, understandable and permanent ban.

Making the case: How it’s done elsewhere

The Park Service bans all wilderness fires within Mount Rainier National Park, a model for Mount Hood (NPS)

No doubt the Forest Service would be wary of doing this, but there is already precedent within our national parks. Mount Rainier National Park bans campfires in all backcountry areas, the equivalent of wilderness there. Many western national parks have complete bans seasonally every summer – including in their campgrounds – often beginning as early as late May or early June. These include North Cascades, Olympic, Crater Lake and Mount Rainier national parks in the Northwest, and several other national parks across the country.

Wilderness campfires are completely banned at Rocky Mountain National Park (NPS)

Kings Canyon National Park has a limited prohibition, banning campfires only in alpine areas above 10,000 feet – an abstract metric that would be unlikely to register with newbie hikers most prone to building campfires in these areas (NPS)

Beyond the goal of simply reducing the risk of human-caused fires, the simplicity of complete campfire bans helps compensate for the inevitable lack of enforcement capacity in wilderness areas, whether in national parks or forests. Unattended or dangerously built campfires aren’t there because people want to start a wildland fire, they’re simple a result of ignorance of the risks they present.

The Park Service approach is a simple, direct, teachable way to serve both outcomes – to prevent the risk of human caused fire, and to educate the public on the reality of the risk. A total ban is at least something that can be understood and thus has a chance of being reasonably self-enforced.

Making the case: Taming our inner caveman…

Heat, light and cooking, all in one. We do seem to retain a primal connection to fire (…that looks to be one of my ancestors on the left, by the way – holding a very large marshmallow stick…)

There’s an undeniable romance with campfires that gives pause to land managers like the Forest Service when it comes to pre-emptively regulating them. Yet, human-caused catastrophic wildfires in WyEast Country in recent years in places like the Columbia River Gorge in 2017 (infamously caused by teenagers with fireworks) and the massive Clackamas Riverside Fire in 2020 (apparently caused by a campfire) have begun to change that posture, albeit very gradually.

For the past few decades, the focus of culture change with wildfire has been on a better public understanding of the benefits and necessity of fire in our forest. It’s an essential piece of changing our attitudes, especially since prescribed burns continue to be controversial — despite their proven value. However, letting go of campfires as a ritualistic part of the outdoor experience has not been directly confronted by the Forest Service – yet.

The mythology of the American West in the 1800s continues to be another part of our romance with campfires. These cowboys are preparing their morning Double Caramel Frappuccino with freshly baked Petite Vanilla Bean scones…

The utilitarian purpose of campfires for cooking is long gone. For wilderness backpackers, alternatives to a wood fire for cooking came in the early 1950s, when compact gas and alcohol stoves were first developed, based on portable military stoves. Today, the advantage of stoves for their simplicity, ease of use and certainty for cooking has made them standard practice for backpackers. And while it’s true that you can’t roast marshmallows or hot dogs over a portable gas stove, that’s what our developed campgrounds offer.

It is true that a fire can be a life-saving source of heat in a wilderness emergency, but so can proper clothing and shelter that are among the 10 essentials that every hiker should carry. And a rare emergency survival fire that might be warranted still represents a fraction of the impact and risk that not having any limit on campfires represents.

Our modern-day connection of campfires to the camping tradition began with the arrival of the automobile and developed roads into our public lands in the 1920s. Though early adopters hauled everything for their campsite in their Model T, developed public campgrounds with picnic tables and formal campfire pits soon followed. Campfires in developed campgrounds today are rarely the source of wildfires today, so they continue to provide a safe solution for campers looking for that S’mores experience

In the end, the most personally compelling case for a ban in our time may be the environmental impacts and risk of wildfires that campfires bring. People head for the wilderness to get away from the human-impacted world, and the despair and sense of loss that so many have shared from our recent, catastrophic fires in the Gorge and on Mount Hood underscore just how personal the connection to wilderness is. That’s a winning argument for a ban that most would understand.

Wilderness is special, and this is where a broader understanding of the ethics of wilderness campfires could begin. What not begin growing that awareness here on Mount Hood?

Making it Happen…

The good news is that a national forest supervisor can make this happen with the stroke of a pen, as these policies are made at the local level. The most direct approach would begin with signage at Mount Hood’s wilderness trailheads, with both regulatory and interpretive messages. For those who take the time to read the signboards (and we salute you!), the messages already posted could be adapted to make the interpretive case for a campfire ban.

However, if the goal is to get the message across to the majority of visitors, a blunt, direct and unavoidable approach is warranted. Like this sign – which, for the record, is not a real Forest Service sign (yet):

Keep it simple and direct. To ensure visibility, a sign like this should be posted away from the information overload of the main signboards and directly below the wilderness boundary markers that that are typically the last sign a hiker passes when entering the wilderness. Again, this example is from Cloud Cap, where you can see the wilderness marker in the distance, just up the trail:

Make the campfire ban (and associated fine) the last thing hikers see as they enter the wilderness, where it might just catch their attention…

To reinforce this very direct approach, the same message could be added to the front of the wilderness permits to better catch the eye of those of us (ahem) who are clearly not reading the back of the form:

…and make it the first thing they see when they complete their wilderness permit

Where would this ban apply? Everywhere inside the Mount Hood Wilderness boundary shown below. The wilderness has been expanded several times since the “Mount Hood Primitive Area” was first designated as wilderness in 1964. This is the current boundary where the campfire ban would apply – and including a ban icon on maps like this could be still another helpful reminder for visitors:

The boundary of the Mount Hood Wilderness where the campfire ban should be enacted

[click here for larger view of the map]

While I’ve highlighted what most consider to be the Mount Hood Wilderness on this map, several nearby wilderness areas have been created or expanded since the 1980s, including the Salmon-Huckleberry Wilderness and Badger Creek Wilderness, as well as smaller pocket-wilderness additions at places like Twin Lakes and Tom Dick and Harry Mountain. Should these areas be included in the campfire ban, too?

My answer is no, at least for now. That’s because these areas are mostly less visited and – with the exception of the summit of Lookout Mountain in the Badger Creek Wilderness — don’t have a Whitebark pine population that could be impacted by wilderness campfires. Over the longer term? Yes, these areas should also be included, as we continue to grapple with the wildfire crisis that is unfolding in our forests.

Why it matters…

Ancient Whitebark pine just off the Timberline Trail on Gnarl Ridge

I’ll close with a photo of one of my favorite Whitebark pine ancients (above). It has likely been growing in this sandy flat near the crest of Gnarl Ridge for at least a couple centuries. And it therefore likely witnessed multiple eruptions of smoke and ash from Mount Hood in the late 1700s as a young tree, the last major eruptive period on the mountain.

This old survivor was just getting established here when Lewis and Clark opened the floodgates to white settlement, and thus far it has survived our arrival in the intervening 200 years. Because of its remote home on the mountain, it also survived the Gnarl Fire in 2008, and very likely other wildfires on Mount Hood’s east slope over the centuries. So far, it has also survived the bug and disease infestations attacking our Whitebark pine forests.

Constant sculpting of this ancient Whitebark pine on Gnarl Ridge from blowing sand and ice crystals prevents the it from oxidizing to grey before it is sanded away, continually revealing the underlying color of the wood

This old tree is also about 200 feet from a group of tent sites along the Timberline Trail. What it may not escape is some camper snapping off its ancient, gnarled limbs for firewood — or worse, a spot wildfire caused by an unattended campfire left burning here for lack of a nearby water source on this windy, exposed alpine ridge.

For me, helping these threatened survivors live another century so that future generations might see and be inspired by them is perhaps the reason of all for finally putting an end to our wilderness campfires.

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Tom Kloster • August 2025

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Postscript: I’ve noted this in recent articles, but it bears repeating: this piece is written at a time when the Forest Service, National Park Service and Bureau of Land Management are under siege from a hostile administration in an unprecedented, orchestrated and blatantly corrupt attack on our public lands. My intent is certainly not to pile on at a time when our public workers at these agencies need our support and respect.

However, I also accept the unfortunate reality that it will take many years to restore these organizations. In the meantime, we will need new approaches to protecting our public lands until we eventually rebuild the agencies charged with their management. This article is written in that spirit and in deep support for our public lands agencies.

Columbia Prickly Pear?

July 13, 2025 / Tom Kloster / 4 Comments

Columbia Prickly Pear colony thriving on the morning side of WyEast

I am a cactus fanatic. As a seven-year-old, I had a row of them in my bedroom window. They were little collectibles in 2-inch pots that you could buy at Fred Meyer for 49 cents. On my first road trip to the Desert Southwest in 1984 I couldn’t get enough of them. That was the first of many trips, often timed to capture cactus in bloom – to me, the ultimate in wildflower beauty.

Cactus are the rattlesnakes of the desert wildflower community. They combine exquisite beauty with remarkable evolution for a strong self-defense. Did you know that cactus spines are really their leaves, modified for both defense and shade? Or that the pad on a prickly pear cactus is really a thickened stem that carries out photosynthesis in the absence of green leaves? They have evolved to a point that seems downright alien to most other flowering plants.

Brittle Prickly Pear colony growing in the Painted Hills Unit, John Day Fossil Beds National Monument

A few years ago, I came across my first prickly pear cactus in Oregon. It was one of our native species, Brittle Prickly Pear, growing in the John Day National Monument at the Painted Hills Unit. I revisited that patch a couple of times over the years, and finally saw it in bloom – another highlight!

Since then, I have found dozens of Brittle Prickly Pear colonies all around the Painted Hills and adjacent Sutton Mountain areas, often covered with blossoms in late May and early June. Even in bloom, these plants are easy to miss in their native desert habitat. Their compact pads are rounded, about the size and shape of your thumb, and covered in grey spines that also act as camouflage against the desert floor. A mature plant has 20 to 30 pads growing in a low mat that is usually less than 6 inches tall.

Brittle Prickly Pear blossoms at Sutton Mountain, near the Painted Hills

Brittle Prickly Pear bear fruit after blooming and can spread by seed, mostly by birds who navigate the cactus spines to feed on the soft inner part of the fruit. Called “tunas”, their fruit is sweet, putting the “pear” in their common name. Like other Prickly Pear species, they have long been used by indigenous people as a food source and medicinally. Fruit from larger Prickly Pear species is still used to make jams and other foods in Native American and Mexican culture.

Their heavy coat of spines and the ability of pads to freely break away is how Brittle Prickly Pear most commonly reproduce. When kicked loose by deer hoof or hiking boot, a stray pad is given a chance to take root and start a new patch in a local colony of cactus. This is how these “brittle” cousins in the Prickly Pear family earned their common name.

Our northern cactus may be diminutive in stature, but they are built small for a reason. Unlike their much larger relatives in the Sonoran Desert, ours endure bitter winter cold and months of winter storms that would flatten the larger cactus you might see in the Sonoran deserts of Arizona or New Mexico.

Ahab and Moby Cactus…

Given my cactus obsession, I had it in my mind to someday see another of our local cactus: the Columbia Prickly Pear, a species that only grows in low-elevation deserts of the Columbia River and Snake River basins. It became my white whale, and I was determined to see Moby Cactus!

There is still some debate as to whether these are a separate species or a hybrid of our Brittle Prickly Pear and Plains Prickly Pear. The latter is a much more common species that grows across much of the West. Botanists have yet to fully agree on this, so for now Columbia Prickly Pear is called Opuntia Columbiana X Griffiths. The last part of the Latin name comes from botanist David Griffiths, who first documented the species for Western science in the 1920s.

Pioneering western botanist David Griffiths in 1903 (Università di Padova)

Griffiths was from a Welsh family that immigrated to South Dakota in 1870, when he was just three years old. He earned a doctorate in botany from Columbia University in 1900, and went on to distinguished career as a groundbreaking scientist working for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). There, he spent the first part of the 20^th century traveling across the American West documenting plants and photographing the range conditions of the Great Basin at a time when the impacts of fencing and heavy grazing on the desert ecosystem were first beginning to appear.

His work was seminal in helping the USDA improve range management practices on our public lands across the West. When Griffiths died in 1935, he donated his botanical records and collection of glass-negative photographs to The Smithsonian National Museum, along with hundreds of Opuntia specimen that he had collected over his career. The Smithsonian describes his archives in bulk terms — 43 cubic feet, to be exact! Griffiths’ field research legacy is still cited by today’s botanists and rangeland scientists, and his name lives on in our local Columbia Prickly Pear.

One of David Griffiths dozens of field notebooks. These pages describe the inside of Prickly Pear fruit. He is believed to have sliced fruit open and simply pressed them against the page to create these images (Smithsonian Museum)

Though David Griffiths has come to be remembered mainly for his passion for the Opuntia family of cactus, his interest in these tough, versatile survivors initially came from a belief that they could somehow be a livestock feed source on the open range. As odd as this sounds, the pads and fruit are already important for deer, antelope, squirrels and other wildlife who either consume the pads whole or work around the spines to get to the flesh. Other wildlife are more opportune, and consume Prickly Pear after range fires have swept through, searing their spines off. This is precisely how indigenous people prepared the nutrient-rich pads and fruit as a first food for millennia, though the spines were also used for sewing, fish hooks and other purposes.

Not too long before Griffiths first cataloged Prickly Pear cactus, white immigrants to the American West discovered them, as well – and not in a good way. Journals from the Oregon Trail describe the misery of migrants stepping through prickly pear as they crossed the western plains in worn out shoes, as most who traveled the Oregon Trail walked beside their wagons for much of the journey.

Our native cactus are easy to miss in the wild. There are at least five patches of Columbia Prickly Pear in this colony along the Columbia River – marked by arrows. In spring, they are especially well-hidden in new, green grass

Having skewered myself a few times with their spines, I can attest to the lingering soreness that comes with getting poked by a Prickly Pear. I suspect native peoples were more adept at navigating them — even nurturing them, perhaps, since they were valued for their food and cultural value. The photo above gives a sense of how well-camouflaged our Columbia Prickly Pear are in the desert grasslands and sagebrush country of the eastern Columbia River Gorge. The arrows point to several patches of cactus in this colony, each no more than 10 inches tall, yet wide enough to snare an inattentive foot!

The 2025 cactus hunt…

Local wildflower buffs and botanists had already done the hard work and locating Columbia Prickly Pear in the east Columbia River Gorge, making my mission much simpler. There were at least three well-documented colonies, and knowing this, I made 2025 the year that I would see them for the first time – and perhaps even photograph them in bloom.

I initially set out over the winter to simply locate the known colonies from fairly general maps posted online. The first colony was located across the river from the Dallas Dam in a most unlikely spot, surrounded by buzzing transmission lines from the dam and traffic noise from interstate 84. However, this colony was also safely within the confines Seufert Park, a Corps of Engineers site adjacent to The Dallas Dam visitor center.

Columbia Prickly Pear thriving just upstream from the Columbia River Bridge in The Dalles. While these can be tough to spot in spring and summer, they stand out strikingly in winter with their spines capturing the low-angle sun and surrounding grasses dormant and flattened by the winter elements

A short trail hike and a bit of cross country exploring took me straight to a colony of about a dozen cactus patches. They looked much like their Brittle Prickly Pear cousins, though their pads were more flattened and slightly larger. It was a thrill to see them growing right here in WyEast country, with the Columbia River spreading out below and Mount Hood shining on the horizon. I’d found my whale!

The next stop took me across the river to Avery Landing, another Corps of Engineers recreation site, just upstream from Columbia Hills State Park and Horsethief Butte. Expecting to find a similar colony here, I wasn’t prepared to find a much larger group of much larger plants! The pads on these plants were as much as 6 inches across, and flat like the Prickly Pear cactus I had seen in the Desert Southwest. These plants stood as much as 2 feet high, and were growing on a high, rocky bench with a beautiful backdrop of the Columbia River and Mount Hood, beyond.

Prickly Pear cactus at Avery Landing grow on a rocky bench, a few hundred feet above the park and Columbia River. These are much larger plants than what I saw at Seifert Park.. why?

With the summer grasses and wildflowers dormant, the structure of Prickly Pear on these very large plants was easier to understand. New pads – the modified stems – grow from nodes on the edge of older pads, with typically 1-3 new pads emerging each spring, as shown below.

How Prickly Pear grow, typically with one to three new pads forming on the margins of an older pad

Over time, this growth habit eventually tips the plants over from the successive weight of each new pad, making them seem to be growing horizontally. When pads touch the ground, they can easily take root, forming a new plant and helping further spread the patch from the original, parent plant. In the image below, each successive pad marks at least one year of growth, as new pads don’t always form on old pads. Thus, this stem of four successive pads is at least four years old, with the newest pad nearly touching ground where it might take root.

This chain of Prickly Pear pads originally stood upright, but has gradually tipped and sprawled with the weight of each successive new pad. Eventually, these pads can root and form new plants if they touch the ground

Though not as common, some older pads that support many newer pads eventually become woody stems to support the load. The image below shows how these stems gradually change from green, energy-producing pads to brown, more conventional stems. The pad near the woody portion of the stem is undergoing this transition, having lost the chlorophyll from the lower portion of the pad.

This Prickly Pear at Avery Landing has developed a woody stem from what was once a green pad in order to hold up the heavy load of successive pads that have emerged

For a cactus fanatic, exploring the colony at Avery Landing was a heady experience! But I had one more colony to visit in completing my initial tour of Prickly Pear in the Gorge.

The final winter stop took me Cliffs Park, yet another Corps of Engineers site, located on the Washington side of the river at John Day Dam. This is a familiar place to me, as I have photographed the beautiful river scenes and ancient gravel beaches that line the Columbia here many times. Using online maps, I found just two small plants that were about the same size in stature as those in Seaford Park, but in much smaller patches. It was a disappointing stop, especially compared to the large colony of very large Prickly Pear at Avery landing. Did I miss something?

Like the Columbia Prickly Pear at Seifert Park, the small colony at Cliffs Park grows in the shadow of one of the massive Columbia River Dams. The John Day Dam rises above this cactus patch

However, as I was photographing the small colony at Cliffs Park, I noticed new buds emerging from some of the pads (below). Were these flower buds or new stems? Surprisingly, some of the buds were also located on the flat side of the pad in addition to the edges. This was quite different from what I had seen at Avery Landing. I was now determined to come back and do a more thorough search in this area and document the growth of these buds in spring.

The arrows point to new buds emerging from this Columbia Prickly Pear at Cliffs Park in early March. Are these flower buds or new pads forming?

As spring approached, I made several more visits to the impressive colony at Avery Landing, and was especially excited in early May to find the plants loaded with flower buds (below). These buds developed very quickly, over just a couple weeks.

Hundreds of flower buds were nearly ready to open at the Avery Landing Prickly Pear colony in mid-May

When the Avery landing colony finally began blooming in late May, I was there with my camera to capture it all, including a photo with the trifecta of cactus blossoms, Mount Hood, and the Columbia River that I had been hoping to capture (second photo, below).

The first Prickly Pear blossoms to open in the Avery Landing colony in late May

Trifecta! Blooming Prickly Pear, the Columbia River and Mount Hood a few days after Memorial Day in late May

However, this is where the story takes an unexpected turn. When I took these photos, I thought the Prickly Pear colony at Avery Park to simply be a more vigorous, over-achieving version of the same Columbia Prickly Pear growing across the river, at Seufert Park. Perhaps their much larger size was simply a reflection their habitat? Where the Seufert Park and Cliffs Park colonies were growing on arid, thin soils atop basalt outcrops, the Avery Park colony grows in deep, sloping sand and gravel deposits left behind by the Missoula floods. Perhaps these soils simply offer more moisture and nutrients than are available to their smaller neighbors across the river?

Only after sharing photos of the Avery Landing colony in an online wildflower community, did I learn that the Avery Landing cactus were not our native Columbia Prickly Pear at all! Instead, these are Desert Prickly Pear, an introduced species known as Opuntia Phaeacantha that grow across much of the desert southwest and into the southern Great Basin. Fact is, their true identity wasn’t completely surprising to me, as the growth habits and size of the two species are so different. But it was disappointing.

Desert Prickly Pear is the true identity of the introduced cactus species growing at Avery Landing

It’s hard to say whether these Desert Prickly Pear were planted here intentionally or arrived here accidentally, but they are thriving now. They have formed an extensive colony of at least 25 separate groups that span a 100-yard long bench above the Columbia River. Their size and the extent of the colony suggests they have been here for some time – likely decades or longer – so they are clearly here to stay.

It’s hard to know exactly how the Desert Prickly Pear cactus have been spreading in the Avery Park colony, but because they are mostly clustered along an abandoned road grade (as highlighted on the map below), their spread here could simply be from human or wildlife activity kicking pads loose to root and begin a new patch.

The Desert Prickly Pear colony at Avery Landing grows on a gravel bench that splits off the access road to the park. The separate groups that make up the colony fall within the highlighted area on this map

However, when I visited the colony again in mid-June, the blossoms had mostly faded and the colony was busy forming hundreds of fruit – tunas – that I think might be the primary explanation for the size of the colony. That’s because there is plenty of wildlife sign here, including a very active colony of California ground squirrels living in the basalt outcrops that border the bench. I suspect they are among the wildlife species feeding on the fairly large tunas and thereby spreading their seeds.

Desert Prickly Pear blossoms have dried up on this plant by early June. They will soon drop off as the fruit beneath ripens

Desert Prickly Pear fruit after blossoms have fallen off in mid-June. They will eventually turn to a reddish-purple color as they ripen

As disappointing as the revelation of their true identity was, the colony of Desert Prickly Pear at Avery Landing is nonetheless a spectacular sight. We may be seeing our future here, too, as climate change spurs plant species from across the spectrum to migrate northward as our Pacific Northwest climate becomes warmer. Already, this colony of Desert Prickly Pear is proving the eastern Columbia River Gorge to be an ideal habitat for a species whose native range is nearly 1,000 miles to the south.

Because I had spent much of the annual bloom window in May at Avery Landing, focused on what I thought were Columbia Prickly Pear cactus, I hurriedly doubled back to the colony at Seufert Park hoping to catch the colony there in bloom. No such luck. By the time I returned there in early June, they were completely bloomed out. Still, I was encouraged to see so many dried blossoms on these plants. I knew I would have another chance to photograph them next year, and a fair estimate of their bloom window in late May.

Columbia Prickly Pear at Seufert Park, with dried blossoms just days after the annual bloom cycle. Blossoms here were much less prolific than on the Desert Prickly Pear at Avery landing. The arrows mark just two blossoms on this large patch

Dried Columbia Prickly Pear blossoms at Seufert Park. The fruit (or “tunas”) beneath the spent blossoms were developing quickly here, already turning to their characteristic ripened hue of deep reddish-purple

Finding only dried blossoms at Seufert Park, I headed east on a very hot June day to revisit the tiny group of Columbia Prickly Pear I had seen at Cliffs Park by the John Day Dam. Perhaps these might still have a few blooms? This time, I ignored the online documentation on the colony and explored the basalt outcrop they grow on more broadly. Sure enough, just 50 yards from the two small plants I had seen on my first visit, I came across at least two dozen well-developed patches in a colony that surpassed Seufert Park. Eureka!

However, the desert grassland had completely browned out for the summer at Cliffs Park, and the cactus were completely bloomed out, too. Still, I was excited to find so many plants here and spent much time that day exploring and photographing them.

Part of the surprising Columbia Prickly Pear colony at Cliffs Park (John Day Dam in the distance). Each arrow marks a separate patch

Then, just as I was getting ready to leave the Cliffs Park colony, I came across one last patch of Columbia, Prickly Pear with a single blossom still hanging on. Fortunately, nobody was around to hear when I let out a whoop! I set up my camera and documented that lonely cactus blossom like no flower has ever been photographed. Ahab had finallyfound his whale!

A straggler! One last Columbia Prickly Pear blossoms (center right) was hanging on for my visit to Cliffs Park in early June. And yes, a trifecta – snowy WyEast and the Columbia River are in the distance

Last of the Columbia Prickly Pear blooming at Cliffs Park in early June

Though I missed most of the spring cactus bloom at Cliffs Park, there was plenty of evidence that it had been a good year, with ripening fruit throughout the colony. And while the blooms had been fairly scattered across the colony, there were also plenty of new pads that had developed over the spring, with new, soft spines that were still hardening into new armor.

Fruit forming beneath dried blossoms on Columbia Prickly Pear at Cliffs Park

The Columbia Prickly Pear colony at Cliffs Park is healthy, with several blooms and many new pads emerging this spring. In this view, four new pads have formed. They can be identified by their short spines that have yet to fully mature

It was already hot and dry at the Cliffs Park colony by early June, so these plants won’t get much moisture until well into September, putting their unique water storage ability into use, once again.

Columbia Prickly Pear at Cliffs Park ready for the summer dry season. This plant has added just one new pad this season (lower right), illustrating how slowly these plants grow in their harsh environment

While the rest of the desert goes dormant until the rains return, these unique plants will remain green and producing food for their root systems throughout the summer and their spines will help protect them when most other forage is long dried up in the desert landscape. This is the genius of their evolution.

They seem to like it on the rocks…

Learning that the Avery Landing cactus colony was an introduced species and not the native Columbia Prickly Pear we have at Seufert Park and Cliffs Park helped me understand the preferred habitats for both species, as they are quite different.

The Desert Prickly Pear at Avery Landing is happy on flat or steep slopes, provided that it can grow in loose, sandy or gravely soils. The Gorge has plenty of this with deep Missoula flood deposits lining the river on both sides, sometimes hundreds of feet deep.

Desert Prickly Pear at Avery Landing seem to prefer the loose benches of Missoula Flood sand and gravel that were left here by ice age floods

Desert Prickly Pear seem highly adaptable, some growing in flat areas and hollows, while others thrive in steep ravines and slopes

Sandy soils seem to be key to the flourishing Desert Prickly Pear colony at Avery Landing

Colorful Missoula Flood gravels are mixed with the sandy soils at Avery Landing, another ingredient the Desert Prickly Pear seem to favor

In contrast, the Columbia Prickly Pear colonies at Seufert Park and Cliffs Park are growing in loose scrabble directly on top of exposed basalt outcrops where the Missoula Floods scoured the bedrock. These are harsh places that seemed impossible for a plant to survive, yet our native Columbia Prickly Pear seems to prefer them.

Columbia Prickly Pear at Seufert Park grow in thin, gravelly soils on a basalt bench above river. A second cactus patch in this view is shown with an arrow

This Columbia Prickly Pear at Cliffs Park is growing from a narrow crack in the basalt

This young Columbia Prickly Pear at Cliffs Park has somehow found a toehold on top of a basalt slab

This is especially apparent at Cliffs Park, where the colony is scattered across a low basalt table, despite being surrounded by deep soil deposits of gravel and sand on three sides.

The Cliffs Park colony favors the top of this dry basalt ledge over the deeper soils that surround it, perhaps because there is less competition there from other plants?

The best explanation might be simple competition, as the sandy areas with deeper soils support much more vegetation, including several wildflower species, where the basalt table is mostly limited to grasses, moss and lichen. Where a thin layer of soil has accumulated on the table, the Columbia Prickly Pear seem most at home. Their unique ability to withstand extreme drought also makes them uniquely able to grow under these harsh conditions.

Helping the Columbia Prickly Pear thrive?

While our Columbia Prickly Pear are not common, they are (fortunately) neither rare nor threatened. They’re just quite hard to find. That’s a shame, because they are unique and deserve to be more widely known and appreciated. This article was written in that spirit (including some general directions for finding them, below).

Were Columbia Prickly Pear much more common in the Gorge when Benjamin Gifford took this photo in 1899 at today’s Cliffs Park? I think so…

Why are they so uncommon? My theory as to their present scarcity is simply the wear and tear on the Columbia Gorge since the era of white settlement began nearly 200 years ago. Heavy grazing, first by sheep, then cattle, surely had an impact. Railroad, highway and dam construction followed, and – most recently – windmills. All disrupted our native flora and fauna. Unlike most other wildflowers, cactus are slow growers, and I suspect they are simply more vulnerable to frequent disturbance. This might be another explanation for colonies living atop rocky basalt outcrops where not much else survives.

To help remedy this state of affairs for our Columbia Prickly Pear in a small way, I’ve taken on a project that I thought I’d share here.

The oddly small number of our native cactus in their native landscape inspired me to try propagating them with the intent of starting some new colonies. My (perhaps half-baked) plan is to offer them to public land managers in the Gorge interested in to establishing new Columbia Prickly Pear colonies in a few new spots of similar habitat along the river – of which there are many.

With that goal in mind, I had collected some pads at Avery Landing last winter for propagating before I knew these to be a different species than our native Columbia Prickly Pear. They rooted nicely, but now they will be donated to a garden in Portland – not the Gorge.

Prickly Pear propagate readily, even from the somewhat withered, bedraggled state of these Desert Prickly Pear cuttings in March

By May the Desert Prickly Pear starts had plumped up from their withered state, showing they had quickly grown new roots. Soon, they began pushing out buds for new pads just two months after I planting. Three new buds are numbered here

By early July, the Desert Prickly Pear cuttings were fully rooted and forming new pads

More recently, I collected some pads from our Columbia Prickly Pear. I’m hoping to root them over the summer and offer them to any interested public land managers, especially state parks. Collecting the pads was simple and discreet – as in, I left no trace. The tools involved a pair of kitchen tongs, a paring knife, leather gloves and a paper grocery sack (as I said in my opening, I’m a cactus fanatic, and growing them is in my wheelhouse!). Once harvested, I gave them a few days for the cut to form a callous before planting them in a 50/50 mix of potting soil and perlite.

Columbia Prickly Pear pads collected for propagation in mid-June

Columbia Prickly Pear pads ready for potting in mid-June

The Columbia Prickly Pear nursery in the foreground (smaller pads with yellow-green coloring and white/grey spines) is clearly different in this side-by-side comparison to the much larger Desert Prickly Pear starts (in back, with blue-green pads and red/brown spines)

And then there’s the little cactus shown below. As I was exploring the colony at Cliffs Park, I found this seedling growing on the gravel shoulder of the park road, just a few inches from the asphalt pavement. I had nearly flattened it when I parked on the shoulder! It was clearly doomed there, so thanks to a small trowel I carry my trail car, this little rescue is now growing happily in a pot, waiting to be planted in some permanent location where it might start a new colony.

The little rescued cactus also gave me a good look at their root systems in the wild. They are surprisingly shallow-rooted! It makes sense when you consider their ability to store water in their pads, and their preferred habitat in shallow, rocky soils.

The Cliffs Park rescue cactus gave me my first look at the surprisingly small root system these plants have in the wild

The Cliffs Park rescue cactus potted and growing in his (her?) new home for a while

I don’t have a specific plan for this project beyond propagating a few plants, but my lifelong cactus obsession would not let me do otherwise. I just think that more people should see these amazing plants in places where they likely used to grow in the East Gorge, before white settlement.

Should you propagate these plants? It’s perfectly legal to take cuttings, so if you own property in the East Gorge with the right habitat and are looking to add native species, yes. You would be helping this unique species thrive. Otherwise, simply admiring them in the wild is the best plan. They don’t make for great ornamental cactus for urban settings compared to the many cultivars out there that have been bred for our gardens.

Where you can see them…

If you are interested in seeing cactus growing right here in the Columbia River Gorge, the colonies at Avery Landing and Cliffs Park are very easy to visit. Both bloom from mid-May into early June. Like many cactus species, the blossoms seem to open during the middle of the day and into evening, so afternoons are the best bet for a visit. However, they are fascinating plants to see any time of year, not just during the blooming cycle.

The Columbia River Gorge Prickly Pear tour begins in The Dalles (and ends at Big Jim’s for a milkshake, of course)

[click here for a large, printable map]

While the Avery Landing colony of Desert Prickly Pear are not native, they are beautiful and grow in a spectacular setting. Most of the colony grows along an old road grade that splits off the paved access road to the park. Watch for it heading off to the right just past the winery at the top of the hill. If you cross the railroad tracks, you have gone too far. Here’s a view (below) of the road grade looking back toward the park road and winery – you can park where I did.

Looking east along the old road grade that is home to a large Desert Prickly Pear colony

Part of the Avery Landing colony is on private land, and clearly defined as such with the fence gate. Please respect private property rights.

To see our native Columbia Prickly Pear, you can visit them along the paved access road to Cliffs Park, located on the Washington side of the river at John Day Dam. Follow the road into the park, and pull off just before it turns to gravel. Here’s a wayfinding photo – watch for these signs and pull off just beyond them. The cactus colony is on the low basalt bench just ahead, on the right (north) side of the road.

The Cliffs Park colony is located on the low, rocky bench directly beyond these park signs

Walk slow and carefully to avoid stepping on them – both for your benefit and theirs! And as with any desert hiking, watch your step for rattlesnakes, too. While you’re not likely to see one, they do like to bask in late morning and early afternoon in rocky areas like this.

The towering backdrop to the Cliffs Park colony are the sacred bluffs that I described in this article (you’ll need to scroll down). This is the area where a proposed energy project is being contested by area tribes and many other groups.

If you’d like to learn more about the controversial project from the perspective of the Rock Creek Band of the Yakama Nation, a powerful new documentary called “These Sacred Hills” is currently being screened around our region. https://sacredhillsfilm.com

The sacred hills rise above the Cliffs Park colony of Columbia Prickly Pear

While you are at Cliffs Park, consider traveling a bit further down the gravel road to visit the expansive pebble beach composed of Missoula flood deposits. Mount Hood floats on the horizon, making this one of the most beautiful spots on the Columbia River.

Mount Hood rises above traditional fishing platforms and the vast beaches of Missoula Flood rocks at Cliffs Park

This is a traditional Indian fishing spot, and you will see several fishing platforms here. The park is open to everyone, but please respect the tribal fisheries and the native fisherman who may be working here. I personally choose not to photograph indigenous people fishing, even on public lands.

I did not include Seifert Park on this itinerary for a couple reasons. First, the cactus here are harder to find than those at Avery Landing and Cliffs Park. Also, while it is public land and open to anyone to explore, the park also includes treaty-protected tribal fisheries. If you do go there, please respect the rights and privacy of the tribes.

These rocky outcrops are home to the Seifert Park colony of Columbia Prickly Pear, but they are also protected tribal fisheries. Please be respectful if you explore here

To see our little Columbia Prickly Pear cactus growing in the most unlikely of places gives a sense of the timelessness of nature, despite these colonies being surrounded by transmission towers, the noise of the dam spillways, railroad and highway traffic and the bones of abandoned industries. While the hand of man has not been kind to these areas, the resiliency of nature is truly impressive and inspiring.
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Tom Kloster • July 2025

A New Vision for Oregon’s Hidden Wilderness

June 15, 2025 / Tom Kloster / 6 Comments

One of the dozens of unnamed, unmapped and off-trail waterfalls hidden in the canyons of the Opal Creek wilderness. This rarely visited falls is on Henline Creek

Heading south from Portland along old Highway 99E brings you first to the historic river town of Milwaukie, then up a forested bluff, past the end of the MAX light line and to the Oak Grove district of Clackamas County. From here, the old highway turns southeast, and makes a long, straight (and dreary) descent through the clutter of strip malls and used car lots on its approach to the edge cities of Gladstone and Oregon City. Normally, this is a grim part of this drive, but that last descent holds a surprise on clear winter days: a prominent cluster of mountain ridges on the horizon just high enough to be snowcapped well into June. What are these peaks?

These are the high crags and ridges that form the rugged crest of the Bull of the Woods Wilderness, the adjoining Opal Creek Wilderness and nearby Table Rock Wilderness areas. The Bull of the Woods and Table Rock areas were protected by Congress in the landmark Oregon Wilderness Act of 1984 and protection for the Opal Creek area followed in 1996. Before it was protected in 1984, the Bull of the Woods area was known to conservationists as the Hidden Wilderness. It’s an apt name and one that I’ll use interchangeably in this article, because despite the surprisingly close proximity to nearly 3 million people in the Willamette Valley, this wilderness remains mostly unknown today.

The Bull of the Woods, Table Rock and Opal Creek wilderness areas are located 30 miles due west of Salem and about 50 miles southeast of the Portland Metro Area.

[click here for a larger view]

We often say this about the lesser-known gems in our scenery-overloaded corner of the country, but if these areas were located in any state east of the Rockies, they’d be a major attraction. More than a dozen craggy peaks across the three wilderness areas rise above 5,000 feet, and the network of streams that radiate from this complex of mountains and steep ridges are among the most pristine in Oregon.

Together, the streams combine to form the beautiful Collawash River, Hot Springs Fork of the Clackamas, Molalla River and Little North Fork of the Santiam. These rivers are known for their unusual clarity, thanks to their protected headwaters.

Sawmill Falls is located on the Little North Fork of the Santiam River that flows from the Opal Creek Wilderness. This photo was taken just before the Bull Complex Fire impacted this part of the Little North Fork in 2021

Opal Creek, a major tributary to the Little North Fork and the namesake for its own wilderness. This photo was also taken before the Bull Complex fire in 2021

The Hidden Wilderness high country is also dotted with dozens of subalpine lakes and tarns that fill cirques and valleys left behind 15,000 years ago by ice age glaciers, when the peaks of the Hidden Wilderness rose high above the timberline. Below the lakes and peaks, dozens of spectacular waterfalls are hidden in the deep, forested canyons. These remain mostly unnamed and little known, and are inaccessible by trail.

A surprisingly dense network or trails traverses the area, however, though they weren’t built with hikers in mind. Some of these trails were built in the late 1800s, during a mining boom that saw a major influx of human activity when gold was discovered along the Little North Fork in 1859 – the same year the State of Oregon was admitted to the union.

Small-scale hard rock mining later expanded across the mineral-rich Hidden Wilderness region to include copper, zinc and lead. Silver King Mountain, in the heart of the wilderness, was named for one of these mining claims. Today, old mining shafts and rusted relics from this era still remain scattered through the forests of the Hidden Wilderness, adding to the mystery and intrigue of the area.

Henline Falls in the Opal Creek Wilderness is named for a miner who made a claim here in the late 1800s. Abandoned mine shafts can still be found along the creek, including one at the base of the falls. This photo was taken before area was impacted by the 2021 Bull Complex Fire

Hikers exploring the abandoned mine at Henline Falls. Mining relics from the late 1800s and early 1900s are found across the Hidden Wilderness

Many of the area trails were built later, when the area was first designated as national forest in the early 1900s. These trails were built to connect the network of fire lookout towers built atop several peaks in the Hidden Wilderness and to the subalpine lakes that provided a water source for lookouts and stock animals. In those early days of the Forest Service, trails also connected guard station, where forest rangers were stationed and “ranged” the forest trails to protect public lands from illegal logging and grazing. Hikers would not discover these trails until the 1920s and 30s, when the first roads brought weekend campers to the forest.

The original cupola-style Battle Ax Mountain fire lookout in the 1930s (USFS)

The Bull of the Woods fire lookout in the 1950s with Mount Jefferson in the distance (USFS)

Most of the historic lookouts and guard stations in WyEast Country were destroyed by the Forest Service in the 1960s, deemed obsolete when air surveillance for fires took over and the modern cobweb of logging roads transformed access within the forest. The old lookout on Bull of the Woods Mountain survived until very recently, when it was destroyed in the Bull Complex Fire in 2021. More than a dozen lookouts and guard stations once stood in the Hidden Wilderness, but only the unique stone Pechuck Lookout structure on Table Mountain and the historic Bagby Guard Station survive today.

Bagby Hot Springs Guard Station in 1913, among the few guard stations where rangers were guaranteed a warm bath every night!

Most of the early 1900s lookouts and guard stations were destroyed in the 1960s, but the historic Bagby Hot Springs Guard Station survives today and serves as a northern gateway to the Bull of the Woods Wilderness

For many years, an unofficial network of dedicated trail advocates has worked to keep the historic network of trails in the larger Clackamas area alive in the face of years of Forest Service neglect, and, more recently, the wave of wildfires that have brought many of the trails here to the brink of being lost forever. A reputation for lawlessness and confusing, poorly maintained trailhead access roads left over from the big logging era of the 1960s, 70s and 80s in the Clackamas River corridor have also discouraged hikers who might otherwise come here to explore this wilderness gem, hidden in plain sight.

The trail system in the Hidden Wilderness has been in slow decline for decades, first from logging that destroyed many trails and trailheads, and later through lack of maintenance and the impacts of frequent wildfires

The unprecedented attack on federal agencies in recent months by the current administration will only add to the struggle to keep the existing trails open in the near term. But in the longer term, there’s no reason to believe this regrettable trend won’t be reversed. This administration will be replaced in just a few short years, and the demand for more and better trail access to our public lands will only grow in that time.

A strong public backlash against the administration’s public lands policies has organized in recent weeks, underscoring the obvious — that people deeply value our public lands, and expect to have access to them. It’s also true that we are in the middle of a generational transition in national leadership, with younger leaders much more likely to view conservation, clean water and recreation as the primary purposes of our public lands.

With this longer, more hopeful future in mind, the rest of this article focuses on the Hidden Wilderness as it could be, and can be. It’s a positive vision for restoring and expanding trail access into the area, embracing and restoring some of the history that has been lost, and in doing so, provide the Hidden Wilderness the care this remarkable place deserves.

Return of Wildfire: It’s still (mostly) a good thing…

The Janus Fire grew rapidly and combined with other blazes to become the Bull Complex in the summer of 2021 (USFS)

When the Janus Butte fire sparked on a ridge above the Collawash River in August 2021, it felt like a recurring bad dream for many, given the series of devastating fires that had roared through the Mount Hood National Forest in the fall of 2020.

While most of the very recent fires in WyEast Country (including the 36 Pit Fire in 2014, the Eagle Creek Fire in 2017 and the massive Riverside Fires in 2020) were notoriously human-caused, the Janus fire was different. Instead, this was a natural wildfire that began with lightning strikes that ignited several small fires in the Collawash River headwaters. By mid-August of 2021, these fires would merge with the Janus Fire and become known as the Bull Complex, named for the Bull of the Woods Wilderness, where they were advancing quickly.

The Bull Complex eventually burned nearly 25,000 acres (shown in pink), with roughly half the Bull of the Woods Wilderness (in dark green) affected. This fire spared previously burned areas to the west, in the adjacent Opal Creek Wilderness, where the 2020 Beachie Creek Fire resulted in more than 90 percent mortality over much of the 190,000 acre extent

By the end of September 2021, the Bull Complex had burned just short of 25,000 acres. Though significant, this burn was only fraction of the 190,000-acre Beachie Creek Fire that swept through the adjacent Opal Creek Wilderness and 138,000-acre Riverside Fire that burned through the Clackamas River area to the north the previous year.

Together, this combination of natural and human-caused fires left a massive burn scar across much of the Clackamas River and Little North Fork watersheds that will take decades to recover. While science tells us that wildfires are a healthy and necessary part of our forest ecosystem, how could burns this extensive be a good thing?

This aerial view shows the impact of the Bull Complex Fire on the heart of the Bull of the Woods Wilderness. The burned slopes of Mount Beachie (in the foreground) are from the much larger Beachie Creek Fire in 2020.

[click here for a large version]

The answer is nuanced. The combined effect of a century of fire suppression and our changing climate has resulted in an unsustainable sequence of fires in recent years in terms of their size, intensity and frequency. This will make forest recovery in some of the largest (and, notably, human-caused) burns much slower. But where recent burns were smaller and less intense, the recovery cycle is already well underway, and the benefits that science promises are already apparent in these places, including in the Bull of the Woods Wilderness.

The Bull Complex Fire is a good example. The fire burned mostly along steep mountain slopes and ridgetops, including through hundreds of acres of standing snags from a series of earlier fires in the Bull of the Woods that swept through the heart of the wilderness in 2008, 2010 and 2011, completely clearing these slopes for what will most likely become beargrass and huckleberry fields for many years to come. The fire also skipped over several forested canyons that had been spared by earlier fires, allowing trees in these areas to continue to age as mature forests, retaining the biological complexity that only old growth forests can bring to a forest ecosystem.

While the Bull Complex was mostly a beneificial fire for the forest ecosystem, it wasn’t so kind to human infrastructure. It will take years to repair trails impacted by the fire, and many favorite camping spots at the high lakes were completely burned. Perhaps most distressing on the human side of the equation was the loss of the historic Bull of the Woods Lookout tower that as completely destroyed by the fire (more on that later in this article).

For the first few weeks, it seemed the 2021 Bull Complex Fire might spare the historic Bull of the Woods fire lookout, but in early September of that year, the fire surged west, completely destroying the old structure (TKO)

Just three years after the Bull Complex Fire, the 2024 fire season threatened to bring yet another blaze to the Bull of the Woods when Sandstone Fire flared up just north of the Hot Springs Fork last September. Like the Bull Complex, this fire threatened the historic structures at Bagby Hot Springs that had been spared by the 2021 fires. Fortunately, the fire was soon contained and cool fall weather set in before it could spread south to the Bagby area.

The rapid succession of wildfire in recent years in the Hidden Wilderness area has felt jarring mostly because fires here had been successfully suppressed for so long. There was a sense that our forests could remain green and unburned, indefinitely, and that they had always looked this way. But if you look closely at photos taken in the 1930s as part of an expansive Forest Service surveying effort, the forests then looked much like our fire-impacted forests of today. While the current pace of fires feels alarming, we are looking at a forest ecosystem that is much closer to its pre-forest management days, with an ecosystem in a far healthier state that was more adapted to fire.

The following photos are from that 1930s survey, and clearly show a forest that had repeatedly burned with smaller, beneficial fires in the decades prior. For the first image, I paired the 1930s view with one took in 1981, showing how the forests south of the Bull of the Woods had already covered the landscape in the absence of fire during the 50-year period between the images:

[click here for a large version]

This 1930s view from Bull of the Woods shows recent burns along the ridges to the southeast that were likely ignited by lightning, and only burned small patches – a desirable “mosaic” pattern that is beneficial to forests:

[click here for a large version]

Looking to the west from Bull of the Woods in the 1930s revealed yet another recent burn in the Pansy Basin, and area that is now forested and has largely survived more recent fires:

[click here for a large version]

This view is from Whetstone Mountain, looking east toward today’s Bull of the Woods Wilderness, showing much of the upper headwaters of Battle Ax Creek burned. Some of these early fires may also have been human caused by mining activity in the area – a mining camp is visible in this image:

[click here for a large version]

With the recent series of fires repeatedly burning the area, what will the Hidden Wilderness look like in another 50 or 100 years? We have a local example that might provide a preview: Silver Star Mountain, which looms on Portland’s northeast horizon. This area experienced a series of devastating (and mostly human-caused) fires in the early 1900s. Due to erosion and extensive canopy loss from these fires, the forest didn’t fully recover, leaving large areas of subalpine meadows and beargrass fields that persist today. The spring wildflower season and sweeping views year-round from the open ridgetops make it a popular hiking destination and important island of open habitat in the surrounding sea of forest.

Spring bloom along Ed’s Trail on the north ridge of Silver Star Mountain.. This area is still recovering from devastating fires more than a century ago

Like the peaks and ridges that make up the Hidden Wilderness, Silver Star Mountain forms the western slope of the Cascades, taking the full brunt of Pacific storms. The intense weather has contributed greatly to the slow the recovery at Silver Star through erosion and brutal winters that stunt emerging forests. By comparison, today’s landscape at Silver Start Mountain looks a lot like the one that existed in the 1930s lookout surveys of the Hidden Wilderness, suggesting what the future might look like here.

The long-term impact of recent fires on human infrastructure in the Hidden Wilderness are easier to predict. We’ve learned in the recovery from the 2017 Eagle Creek Fire in the Columbia Gorge that fires have long-term impacts on trails as the forest recovers, from ongoing erosion to falling snags and explosive growth of the rejuvenated understory that continually overcomes trails.

Silver Star Mountain gives a good idea of what most of our forests looked like before fire suppression began in the early 1900s. The open peaks here provide important subalpine habitat that we will now likely see in the Hidden Wilderness as it recovers from fire

Access roads have also been affected by the fires, especially in the heavily burned Opal, Battle Ax and Mother Lode creek valleys, adding to questions about their sustainability in an era when industrial logging no longer provides revenue to justify the extensive logging road network built in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, and radical cuts to Forest Service budgets by the current administration raise serious questions about our ability to maintain today’s network of forest roads in the future.

Drawing a new vision from the past?

Way back in 1980, when I was college freshman at Oregon State University, I jumped into the Oregon conservation movement with both feet. Commercial logging on our public lands was moving at an appalling pace, and the few wild places left in the Western Cascades were very much in peril. As Mark Twain wrote, “history doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes”, and that first year of Ronald Reagan’s presidency felt a lot like what we are experiencing now from a conservation perspective — albeit with more grace and nuance, to say the least, Yet, the intent was the same: slash public agency budgets and sell off from our public lands where they could be sold.

The author with a poster fundraiser for the OSU Student Chapter of the Sierra Club back in the day. At $10 this raised some funds and made it onto a lot of dorm room walls!

In response, local activists across Oregon were organizing to advocate for very place-specific islands of intact wilderness that had been spared from logging. The strategy of the day was to publish hiking guides and brochures to help advertise what was at stake with these remaining, still untouched gems. My own involvement was with the Salmon-Huckleberry Wilderness effort, where I put together a brochure and map in collaboration with a conservation group based in Portland to help get the word out. Thankfully, the Salmon-Huckleberry was among the areas protected in the landmark, Republican-sponsored 1984 Oregon Wilderness Act that Ronald Reagan eventually signed into law.

Of these local, grass-roots efforts around Oregon in the late 70s and early 80s, nobody topped the fine field guide published by the Central Cascades Conservation Council, a Salem-area group that gave the Hidden Wilderness its name. Their excellent guide (pictured below) not only provided the most complete trail descriptions for the area to date, but also included an excellent, folded topographic trail map tucked into the back! I was hooked, and made my first overnight trips into the Hidden Wilderness in the summer of 1981.

One of my treasured copies of the Oregon Hidden Wilderness guide and map – you can still find these as used book stores now and then!

The core strategy of those late 70s and early 80s conservation efforts was “eyes on the forest”, the idea that bringing people to endangered places was essential to creating public awareness and advocacy. Thus, the many brochures and guides created by non-profits in that era to introduce people to less-visited places that were gravely threatened by logging. They were largely successful in that objective, as some long-forgotten trails in placed like the Hidden Wilderness were newly “discovered”.

The Bull of the Woods and Table Rock areas were included in 1984 wilderness legislation and the Opal Creek Wilderness was created through a later bill in 1996. These were big wins for the conservation effort, bringing long fought-for protection to the greater Hidden Wilderness area.

The author atop Battle Ax in the fall of 1981

However, these conservation victories in the 1980s and 90s also marked the beginning of a long cycle of decline of the historic trail networks across our national forests as we entered the current era of federal defunding of our public lands. Continued logging on the borders of the new wilderness areas has also continued to chip away at the gateway trails and trailheads, and recent fires have compounded the deterioration of trails access to trailheads.

Therein, lies the opportunity. With trails once again on the brink of being lost forever, and a public both horrified by the administration’s attack on public lands and eager to have better access to the places, are we at a moment for a renewed vision for our public lands?

I think so! There’s a saying from the civil rights era that applies: “during the good times, plan for the bad, and during the bad times plan for the good” We’re certainly in a bad time, but I do believe a period of reconstruction is ahead. So, in that spirit, read on for one way in which the Hidden Wilderness could be reimagined when those better times arrive.

Making the Hidden Wilderness less “hidden”…?

The “eyes on the forest” strategy can still be a powerful, lasting solution to some lingering challenges facing the Hidden Wilderness today. Much of the illegal and destructive behavior that has long dogged backcountry in the Clackamas River corridor traces directly to a lack of eyes on the forest. Even a slight uptick in visitors traveling to campgrounds and trails is a proven antidote to lawless activity like dumping, illegal shooting off-roading outside designated areas.

The existing trail network in the Hidden Wilderness extensive and lightly visited, with plenty of room to accommodate more hikers if trails and trailheads were given more attention. Bringing new hikers is also a help to gateway communities with recreation-based economies who increasingly depend on tourist dollars to survive.

The author backpacking the Hidden Wilderness in 1981. Short shorts were just a thing back then, no further explanation provided…

Most importantly, a program to rebuild and expand the trail network in the hidden Wilderness would help fill the deep deficit in outdoor recreation opportunities that exists in the greater region. The number of trails within a couple hours of Portland has actually decreased since their peak in the 1930s while the metropolitan area population has ballooned from just 500,000 in 1940 to more than 2.5 million residents today – a five-fold increase whose impact is obvious on our trails. It’s not a surprise that maintained trails with good access are often very crowded today.

As communities in the Portland region and Willamette Valley continue to grow, it makes sense to reinvest and improve the trail networks that already exist in places like the Hidden Wilderness, right in our own backyard. It’s also an opportunity for everyday people to be part of that solution through volunteer trail work (more on that in a moment).

Twin Gateway Proposal

Though there are several existing access points of varying condition to the Hidden Wilderness, this article focuses on greatly improving the northern access from the Clackamas River corridor, along Highway 224, which functions as the most direct route from the Portland Metro region. Two new “gateway” trailheads are proposed (below).

The proposed Hot Springs and Collawash gateway trailheads in relation to the Portland Metro region and Clackamas River corridor

[click here for a large version]

The first gateway trailhead would be along the Hot Springs Fork of the Clackamas, at the now-closed Pegleg Falls recreation site. This new gateway to the wilderness would feature a completely new trail along scenic, virtually unknown and (so far) unburned Pansy Creek, with a second, short connecting trail along the Hot Springs Fork linking to the already very popular Bagby Hot Springs recreation site.

The proposed Hot Springs gateway would repurpose the mothballed Pegleg Falls picnic site

The new Hot Springs trailhead would be the starting point for a dramatic loop trail system into the heart of the Hidden Wilderness, while avoiding further crowding at the Bagby parking area, where most visitors are there simply for a day to visit the hot springs. The new trailhead would also take advantage of the Pegleg Falls recreation site, a picnic area that has fallen into disrepair, but could easily be reopened and repurposed as a gateway trailhead.

The second gateway trailhead would be along the Collawash River, just above its confluence with the Hot Springs Fork. This new trailhead would repurpose an overgrown logging yard just off the Collawash River Road. Like the Pegleg Falls site, it is easily accessed from paved roads, a significant improvement for those not wanting to navigate miles of deteriorating, poorly marked logging roads and the lawless activity that is too often found there.

For less experienced hikers, or people concerned about driving backcountry roads, this sign announcing miles of poorly maintained gravel roads ahead is an unwelcome sight. The new Collawash gateway trailhead would spare hikers five miles of backroad travel to reach Dickey Creek

The new Collawash gateway trailhead would also save backpackers ten miles of backroad travel to the sketchy Elk Lake trailhead with a new trail to the Elk Lake Trail via the Collawash River

With both proposed gateways, the main objective is to create loop trail systems into the Hidden Wilderness with easily accessible, well-developed trailheads that will not only draw new visitors, but also be easy to maintain, for law enforcement to patrol and for everyone to feel safer leaving a vehicle there overnight.

A second important objective is to provide more year-round recreation opportunities. Both new trailheads would be at the relatively low elevation of just 2,000 feet, and thus largely snow-free and mostly open year-round. The new trails along the Collawash River, Dickey Creek and Pansy Creek would be relatively low elevation routes, mostly under 2,500 feet, providing much-needed, all-season streamside trails to provide alternatives and take pressure off the limited number of existing, all-season trails in the region.

A closer look at both gateway trailhead concepts follows…

The Hot Springs Fork Gateway

The Hot Springs Fork gateway would salvage the long-abandoned day-use area at Pegleg Falls, a beautiful spot that really deserves to be restored. The site is just 65 miles from downtown Portland, and accessed entirely on paved roads. From the proposed gateway trailhead, a new footbridge across the Hot Springs fork would lead to a proposed Pansy Creek trial and a new Hot Springs connector trail to the Bagby trailhead, just upstream. The map below shows the concept in detail, and how these new connections would create a grand backbacking loop into the heart of the Hidden Wilderness.

[click here for a large version of this map]

The section of the Hot Springs Fork at Pegleg Falls is exceptionally scenic, with summer swimming holes for picknickers and upstream views of 20-foot Pegleg Falls. While the proposed trails would provide exciting new routes into the wilderness for backpackers, they would also serve casual hikers looking for a less challenging experience, as the first section of the new Pansy Creek Trail and proposed Hot Springs Connector would offer easy, streamside routes through lush forest.

Despite the closure of the picnic site, Pegleg Falls remains as a beautiful spot along the Hot Springs Fork that is now gated off to the public

Dilapidated chain-link fences and other leftovers from the defunct Pegleg Falls site could be responsibly removed or repurposed as part of creating a new gateway trailhead here

The new Pansy Creek trail would also bring a surprise for day hikers and backpackers, with an little-known series of waterfalls along the lower three miles of the proposed route. These have only been seen in recent years by a few intrepid waterfall explorers, though loggers likely explored the stream during they logging heyday of the 1960s, 70s and 80s. While the Pansy Creek valley is still recovering from heavy logging in the past, the valley has managed to escape fire in recent years, making this an especially lush rainforest route along the stream corridor.

For day hikers, the Pansy Creek waterfalls would be within a couple miles of the new gateway trailhead at Pegleg Falls. For backpackers, they would mark the start of an exceptional two-or-three day trek that takes them past waterfalls, mountain lakes and high peaks.

Beautiful Pansy Falls along the proposed Pansy Creek trail (Tim Burke)

Upper Pansy Falls along the proposed Pansy Creek trail (Tim Burke)

The upper extent of the loop also includes a proposed connecting trail between the Bagby and and new Pansy Creek trails, creating shorter loop options for both backpackers and day-hikers. This new connector and the proposed Pansy Creek Trail would join the existing wilderness trail system at Pansy Lake.

The proposed Pansy Creek trail would join the existing trail system at Pansy Lake, the stream’s headwaters

The new loop trails would also promote more use of the existing Bagby Trail, an important and historic route that is rarely visited beyond the popular hot springs site. As a result, this trail had fallen into disrepair over the years, and is only now being gradually restored by volunteers.

Do you recognize this waterfall? Not many would, even though it is located just beyond popular Bagby Hot Spring. Beyond the hot springs, this lovely trail is only lightly used, in part because of years of deferred maintenance

This excellent camping spot along the Bagby Trail is only lightly used today, but would be part of a spectacular new wilderness loop with the proposed new Hot Springs gateway trailhead

The Collawash Gateway

The new Collawash gateway trailhead would be the starting point for new trails along both the Collawash River and an extension of the Dickey Creek trail connecting to the new Collawash trail. Together, these new routes would create a spectacular loop reaching into the high country of the Hidden Wilderness (see concept map, below).

[click here for a large version of this map]

The Collawash River is already a popular spot in the Clackamas Corridor, and for good reason. The unique geology of the area and clarity of its tributary streams in the high country of the Hidden Wilderness make for a stunning canyon of deep, clear pools framed by enormous boulders and cliffs. An ancient landslide extends for several miles on the east side of the Collawash, continually reshaping the east wall of the canyon and creating steep whitewater rapids and deep pools along this way.

The new trail would follow the more stable west side of the canyon, in a section of river where the Collawash road climbs quite high and to the east of the canyon. The result would be a true wilderness experience, despite the parallel road corridor. This section of river has never had a trail, so only kayakers and rafters have been here to witness a canyon of spectacular beauty. The new trail would instantly become among the most scenic in the region, eventually connecting to the existing Elk Lake Creek Trail, which leads into the high country of the Hidden Wilderness.

Though paralleled by miles of logging roads, the upper Collawash River remains wild and spectacular. A new trail here would be among the most scenic in the region

The proposed new Collawash River trail and gateway trailhead would largely replace this current “gateway” to the Hidden Wilderness at Elk Lake Creek, where a massive clearcut on the mountain slope ahead greets hikers

Complementing a new Collawash River trail would be an extension of the existing Dickey Creek Trail downstream to the Collawash (see previous concept map). This would allow the Forest Service to abandoning the steep canyon wall descent that currently provides access to Dickey Creek, and even the old logging spur road used to reach the current trailhead. The purpose of this new trail is to provide direct access to Dickey Creek from a far more accessible trailhead, and offer a longer trail experience along this beautiful stream for day hikers or backpackers heading further into the Hidden Wilderness.

What would it take to bring these concepts to reality? More on that in a moment…

Bring back the Bull of the Woods Lookout?

For those who had visited the historic Bull of the Woods lookout over the years, the 2021 Bull Fire felt personal when it swept over the peak, burning the lookout and the traces of at least one outbuilding. Like most wilderness lookouts, it had been in disrepair, the result of limited federal agency budgets that made basic trail maintenance here a challenge and a general reluctance by the Forest Service to maintain fire lookouts that are no longer in use.

Lost in the 1991 fire – the plaque marking the Bull of the Woods fire lookout as a national historic site (Zach Urness)

The historic 1942 structure that burned was not the first lookout at Bull of the Woods. The earliest lookout here was built in the 1920s, and eventually replaced with the classic L-4 design structure that stood here for nearly 80 years. The frame for the original tower was pre-fabricated at the Zigzag Civilian Conservation Corps camp (now the site of the Zigzag Ranger Station). The frame, cabin and outbuildings were then assembled on site with the materials hauled in on pack animals.

The view from the catwalk on the Bull of the Woods lookout was 360 degrees, but it was the view to the southeast of Mount Jefferson rising over the backcountry of the Hidden Wilderness that was most captivating

The Bull of the Woods lookout was last staffed in the summer of 1964. Somehow, it was spared over the next few years when the Forest Service burned dozens of lookouts and guard stations around Mount Hood to the ground as aerial fire surveillance took over.

Thirty-two years later, it was added to the National Historic Register after being nominated by the non-profit Forest Fire Lookout Association. Like most listings for historic forest structures, the status did little to bring resources to preserve the building. Sadly, we have seen this play out across WyEast Country, with priceless, historic structures like the Little Sandy Guard Station and Timberline Trail shelters on Mount Hood falling apart in recent years before our eyes.

The fire took the lookout building at Bull of the Woods but restored the view of Big Slide Lake, far below

So, this seems to be the end of the story for the Bull of the Woods lookout… or is it? It doesn’t have to be, though it would literally require an act of Congress to replace it. There is precedent, in fact. In Washington State, the much-loved Green Mountain lookout had fallen into disrepair in the 1990s, and was finally closed to the public in 1994.

After efforts to make on-site repairs in the late 1990s failed to adequately restore the structure, volunteers worked with the Forest Service to completely remove the lookout, piece by piece, and restore it off-site over a five-year period. With the support of private foundation grants, the restored parts were then re-assembled on site in 2009.

Green Mountain lookout being reassembled on its perch in the Glacier Peak Wilderness in 2009 (Photo: Spokane Review)

This decade-long effort to preserve the lookout did not go unnoticed, however. The restoration of the Green Mountain lookout within the bounds of the Glacier Peak Wilderness triggered a lawsuit by the Montana-based Wilderness Watch conservation group. They challenged the replacement of the structure as a violation of the Wilderness Act, and in 2012 a federal judge agreed, ordering its removal. The newly restored lookout seemed doomed, once again.

This is where the act of Congress came in. Washington Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell introduced legislation to specifically exempt the Green Mountain Lookout from the Wilderness Act, a bill that President Obama signed into law in 2014.

Volunteers hanging a stewardship program welcome banner at the Green Mountain Lookout in 2019, five years after the rebuilt structure was saved from demolition (Photo: Everett Herald)

Today, the lookout still stands as one of the most popular hiking destinations in the state of Washington. To ensure its care in perpetuity, the Washington Trails Association has partnered with the Forest Service to establish an ongoing stewardship program at the lookout to staff the structure with volunteers during the summer hiking seasons, serving as forest interpreters for hikers visiting the lookout and care for the structure, itself.

Could a similar case be made to restore the lookout at Bull of the Woods? It would be a heavy lift, to be sure, but it could also help further the cause of protecting – and sometimes even replacing – historic structures in our forests. After all, they were here long before wilderness protections were created, and they serve as priceless traces of our forest history.

What would it take?

How can any of this ever happen… new trails, new trailheads, restored lookouts? Especially in the current political environment? That’s the inevitable question, of course, as the current administration in Washington continues their dismantling of our federal agencies and threatens to sell off our public lands.

My optimism comes from past cycles of trail building that have always come in waves, and my belief that a renewed focus on recreation and conservation is around the corner.

CCC trail crew working in the Mount Hood National Forest in the 1930s

Our greatest era of trail building came in the 1930s, thanks to New Deal job creators like the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and Works Progress Administration (WPA). These programs were a direct result the economic calamity of the times, and a willingness of Americans to reinvent government on a grand scale. The majority of the trails we enjoy today were built (or rebuilt) over just one decade when these programs were in full swing. World War II brought an end to the CCC and WPA, but the spirit and success of these programs remain on full display on public lands throughout the country.

A lesser-talked about golden era for trails came in the 1970s, and it, too, followed a period of social turbulence and unrest in the 1960s. While it’s true that logging on federal lands was hitting its peak at that time, it was also the case that new trails were being built by the Forest Service around the country. The Youth Conservation Corps (YCC) was created in August 1970 as an updated version of the CCC to help with this work, and signed into law by President Nixon, no less! The YCC still exists today, though somewhat scaled back from its 1970s heyday.

Today’s trail along the Hot Springs Fork to Baby Hot Springs was one of hundreds rebuilt by the CCC in the 1930s and further improved by the YCC in the 1970s

Flash forward to 1993, when AmeriCorps was created as part of the National Community and Community Trust Act, bipartisan legislation that has enabled millions of young people to gain experience and find direction in their lives in the three decades that have followed. In Oregon, this includes trail work on some of our most iconic trails, including the Timberline Trail.

While these programs and our agencies who administer them are under attack from the current administration, only Congress can create government programs and fund them. So, while are in an unprecedented time of belligerence toward the very idea of democracy and self-governance, it’s also true that these programs (and the country) will survive this ugly era. Why? Because they are popular and represent a minimal expense in the larger federal budget.

Eugene-based Northwest Youth Corp partners with AmeriCorps in their young adult leaders program. I ran into this group on the Timberline Trail one evening, where they were relaxing at camp after another day of trail work. When I offered to take a group portrait, their pride was overwhelming: they dropped everything and ran to get their hardhats and tools. It was a memorable encounter more than 15 years ago, and I’m certain their experience continues to enhance and shape their adult lives

That’s where my optimism is grounded. You wouldn’t know it from what is unfolding in our nation’s capital right now, but Americans aren’t nearly as divided as opportunists like the current president and his supporters seek to project. Access to our public lands is considered a sacred right by most Americans, across the political spectrum, and already the public is strongly objecting to the direction this administration has taken. When the impacts of the recent job cuts at the Forest Service and other land agencies begin to be felt over the coming months and years, it will be a real wake-up call, especially to the rural communities where most of these jobs are based.

The truism “you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone” perfectly captures our very human tendency to take things for granted when they are going well– until they aren’t and we’re forced to reconcile with our role in what we’ve lost. I’m confident that we’re not only at that moment, but also to a historic degree that rises to the level of the 1930s and 1970s activism and reforms. Trails will be part of that, along with a renewed vision for public lands.

Trailkeepers of Oregon (TKO) and the Hidden Wilderness

I would be remiss if I didn’t include mention of the work Trailkeepers of Oregon (TKO) has begun in the Hidden Wilderness. TKO began sending volunteer crews here a few years ago to begin chipping away at the backlog of maintenance and the impact of recent fires on the trail system. In 2024, that work focused on the beautiful Dickey Creek Trail — the northern route into the wilderness that would be extended with the proposal in this article.

The plan was for TKO was to continue their work going forward, eventually restoring the larger trail network In the Bull of the Woods and Opal Creek wilderness areas, where crosscut saw expertise and backcountry crews are required under the Wilderness Act.

TKO volunteers reopening the burned section of the Dickey Creek Trail in 2024

The budget freezes and staffing cuts under the new administration has changed that. Among the fallout from the haphazard cuts to our public agencies is not only the loss of core agency staff for critical functions like firefighting, but also staff who empower volunteers who do the bulk of the trail maintenance and construction in today’s National Forests.

While we navigate out of the current political moment, the impact of the current staff cuts is real. Recreation programs at the Forest Service had already been running on fumes since the 1990s, so there really was no “fat” to trim, as much as the administration would like us to believe. The result has been a devastating loss in both human capacity and institutional knowledge within the Forest Service and other federal land management agencies. Unfortunately, it will takes many years to rebuild them once this storm is behind us.

TKO volunteers clearing logs from the lower Dickey Creek Trail with crosscut saws in 2024

But the current problem extends to non-profits like TKO who have contracts with the Forest Service to lead volunteer trail crews. The administration has frozen many of the small grants used to fund these contracts. This has put TKO and other trail-oriented non-profits at risk, so now is a great time to send some extra support to help bridge the gap:

Trailkeepers of Oregon (TKO)

Filling the gap will allow TKO continue to care for trails on Mount Hood and in the Gorge, despite the current uncertainty in Forest Service grants. It’s also form of resistance, since the value of spending time in nature on our public lands seems to be a foreign concept to this regime. And if you’re already stepped up to support TKO, thank you!

There is a saying “In the good times, plan for the bad, and in the bad times, plan for the good” that applies to this moment. Yes, there is much work ahead in keeping our trails open and ensuring that our public lands remain public, but we should also keep dreaming about those better days ahead when we can once again go big on trails and recreation in WyEast Country. That day will come!

And if you’ve read this far, thanks for hanging in there on what became a rather lengthy and unwieldy article! I appreciate your patience and, as always, thanks for stopping by!

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Author’s Obscure Postcript…

As you probably noticed, I included a few grainy images in this article from a 1981 backpacking trip into the Hidden Wilderness with my college roommate Dave. We took his early 70s Toyota Carolla wagon up the bumpy road to the Dickey Creek Trailhead while dodging log trucks, as there was very active logging at the time. For the next four days we hiked, swam, explored, fished and took in the views.

They don’t make ‘em like this anymore… and yes, I still have this camera!

However, it wasn’t until decades later that I discovered an undeveloped 126 film cartridge in this old camera that I carried on hikes in those days. I sent it off to be developed, and sure enough, it was filled with exactly 12 images from that trip – one complete roll. I had graduated to an Olympus OM-1 SLR camera shortly after that trip, and had forgotten about the roll of film left in the old Kodak Instamatic!

These grainy photos are priceless to me now, and it was fun to find a purpose for them in this piece!
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Tom Kloster | June 2025

To leash… or not to leash? (hiking with dogs)

March 3, 2025June 15, 2025 / Tom Kloster / 9 Comments

The author with our current pack — Shasta, Whiskey and Weston

There probably isn’t a more divisive topic among hikers than whether dogs should be leashed on trails. To qualify myself, I’ve included a few images of me with the beautiful pack of dogs that pretty much run our lives. We love dogs (and cats). My wife and I have owned 11 in our nearly 41 years together, with plenty of time spent in the outdoors with them. For what they are worth, those are my bona fides for posting this opinion piece!

My own experience as a longtime dog owner informs me on a couple fronts in the debate over leashes. First, owning a dog is an ongoing learning experience where the humans become increasingly aware of what is (and isn’t) in their control when hard-wired canine behavior simply takes over, no matter how well a dog has been trained. Second, nobody can love your dog as much as you do, and — can it be true? — sometimes people might really dislike your dog! What is wrong with these people?

Dogs and exploring have gone hand-in-hand since the evolution of domestic canines. This rare trail scene is from around 1900 on the west summit of Lookout Mountain, with Mount Hood in the distance. Rover is even caught barking in this unusual image (head sticking in on the far left)

And thus the ongoing debate over leashes and trails. It really shouldn’t be a debate, because dogs should ALWAYS be in a leash on hiking trails. If they need a space to play unleashed, and don’t have room at home or a fenced backyard, then a dog park is semi-safest bet. Otherwise, when dogs are outside the home, they should be on a leash – especially on hiking trails.

Why? Aren’t trails meant to be a place where both you and your dog can escape the stresses of urban life and become immersed in nature? Absolutely. But as a physical space, trails are narrow, confined spaces, often in steep terrain with little room to navigate approaching hikers – or for other hikers to navigate you and your dog. This is especially true for our most popular trails, where you likely to encounter many other hikers, often with their own dogs. Keeping your dog on leash is as basic a gesture of mutual respect for others in sharing the trail. And while we humans find roaming a tree to be a stress-buster, dogs are usually more stressed off-leash than on one. They’re pack animals and leashes (with the pack leader at the other end) help maintain the pack order they crave.

Oregon Humane Society Technical Animal Rescue Team (OHSTAR) volunteers in 2014 rescuing an off-leash dog that had fallen over a 150-foot cliff in the Columbia River Gorge. Most don’t survive these falls (photo: OHS)

Leashing your dog also protects it from harm, especially from other dogs. Dogs on trails behave differently than they might at home, including how they interact with other dogs they may perceive as a threat in an unfamiliar place. Unleashed dogs in WyEast Country also fall from cliffs in the Columbia River Gorge with regularity, and usually don’t survive. Rescuing those that survive the fall often involves putting volunteer crews at risk. This is why the Oregon Humane Society (OHS) recommends always keeping your dog on a leash when on the trail.

Perhaps most compellingly, leashing your dog helps avoid traumatizing other people who may have a deep fear of dogs, especially large dogs. This includes young children inexperienced with dogs, and whose lifetime perspective comes from their earliest encounters with animals, especially big dogs.

When leashes are required… should you say something?

I hiked the Labyrinth Trail in the east Columbia River Gorge a few weeks ago, and noted the obvious sign at the trailhead: leashes required from December 1 through June 30. Winter and early spring are my preferred seasons for this trail, so it has been an ongoing frustration of mine to see so many people flouting this simple rule. After all, it’s intended to protect wildlife during a vulnerable season, who could disagree with that? Normally, I just grit my teeth and greet folks in a friendly way, but with a thought bubble that says “didn’t you SEE the sign?”

Yes, this signpost at the Labyrinth Trail is busy and somewhat confusing….

…but the leash requirement is quite clear!

Within a minute of taking the above photos, two hikers came from behind me with a pair of dogs off-leash, glanced at the sign, and walked right by without pausing to leash their pups. Emboldened by my recent high-speed chase for my stolen backpack, I decided to self-deputize as a ranger for some enforcement of my own that day, and speak up to people who had their dogs off-leash. I made the trip an experiment in “reminding” folks of the seasonal leash requirement. The response was not what I expected!

Over the course of that cool, clear Sunday afternoon, I encountered eight separate groups of hikers with dogs. Seven groups were on the main trail, and of these, only two had their dogs on-leash. The eighth group was walking along the abandoned section of highway that leads to the signed trailhead, and had two dogs on leash. Of the five groups who had dogs unleashed, the degree of roaming ahead of their owners varied largely based on size, with big dogs much more likely to roam.

How did people respond when some greybeard stranger confronted them about their off-leash-dog? There were a variety of reactions, though I’m pleased to say that I gradually perfected a non-threatening (I think) approach to my newly self-deputized role of The Enforcer.

This pup is properly leashed on the high slopes of Mount Hood, protecting alpine wildlife who have little cover at this elevation

On my first encounter, the owner seemed startled and surprised that anybody would say something about their off-leash dog. I opened the conversation with “Hi, just FYI this trail is on leash-only this time of year.” They broke eye contact and muttered something that sounded like “oh, okay…”. I responded with a cheerful “have a nice hike!”.

It felt very awkward. While I always greet people I see on the trail, it’s usually just to wish them a nice hike. Commenting on their off-leash dog came across as a scold, something I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of, nor is my nature to do. I don’t know even how effective the “scold” was on this firsts encounter, as the person certainly didn’t pause to leash their dog as they scooted down the trail in the opposite direction.

The next encounter is one I rehearsed when I saw a pair of big dogs running wild in the short video clip that I captured, below. I really wanted to talk to this group because these dogs were roaming well beyond sight of the owners. This is clearly the impact on wildlife that leash rules are intended to minimize, let alone the impact on other hikers — especially those with their own dogs. Alas, I never did catch up with this group, though I did hear much whistling and loud calling as they attempted to keep their unruly dogs within sight. I wondered how many other hikers might have had their day on the Labyrinth Trail spoiled by unwelcome encounters with this group? Or wildlife that had been terrorized or even harmed?

Dogs gone wild on the Labyrinth Trail…

Next, the pair of hikers with three dogs in the second part of the video approached me. This was the same pair that had walked right past the trailhead sign. I attempted a smoother, more sympathetic delivery on this encounter: “Hi, how are you? Hey, you might not know, but this trail requires a leash this time of year. It’s sort of hidden on the trailhead sign.” That’s not remotely true, of course, but I wanted to try something less threatening in this round.

One of the hikers said in a rather surly reply “well WE didn’t see any sign“ and the other simply looked quite annoyed that I had dared to say anything at all. Thud. Clearly, my smooth, low-key delivery hadn’t worked. So, I replied “no worries, not trying to be a jerk, I just thought you would want to know. Have a great hike!” Silence.

I’m not sure how that last part landed with this pair, but there is zero chance they had not seen the sign at the trailhead, nor did they bother to leash up their dogs as they headed off from our exchange on the trail. Did they actually read the sign on some earlier visit? Hard to know, but from my vantage point they walked right past it, as if they had hiked the trail many times. Most of us stop to read directional signs, after all, especially if we’re not familiar with the trail.

While I’d like to give them the benefit of the doubt, more likely they just decided the rules do not apply to them. That was the vibe I got from our brief exchange, and therein lies one of the great obstacles to posting leash requirements on trails without any enforcement. Some people really just don’t care, unfortunately.

This dog on the Cooper Spur Trail should be on a leash. Big dogs can terrorize a lot of wildlife in open terrain. On Mount Hood, unleashed dogs also regularly chase wildlife onto loose glacial canyon slopes, sometimes becoming stranded and requiring rescue

The next two sets of hikers had their dogs on-leash, so I decided to complement my self-appointed policing with some unsolicited praise. The first was an older hiker with an adorable dog that looks like it might have been an unlikely Corgi – German Shepherd mix. I greeted them with “Hi! Thank you for keeping your dog on leash!”

The hiker smiled (I think the dog did, too) and replied that it was the only way they could really keep track of where their low-to-the-ground dog was, and that they worried about it tangling with a rattlesnake or other hazards off trail. That’s a responsible dog owner! I’ll return to those potential hazards later in this article. I wished them a good hike and moved on.

Even little dogs should be leashed. Though they may not be scary, even when they approach grownups aggressively or barking, they can be terrifying to youngsters. This hiker is setting a great example by leashing their small dog in the Mount Hood Wilderness

The second group with their dog on-leash was a young couple with a roughly six-year-old kid and a very friendly golden retriever. I said “Hi! Thank you for leashing your dog, not many people are today!” Then, thinking about impressionable young ears, I added “I think the leash requirement is to protect wildlife this time of year.“

The couple beamed and were very receptive. I’m going to guess they spent some time talking to their youngster about this as they headed up the trail – hopefully, anyway. They were setting a really good example, and what kid doesn’t want to watch out for wildlife?

Family outing to Elk Cove with their beautiful, big dog properly leashed — and they even posed for me!

I continued to fine-tune my comments as I encountered still more hikers with off-leash dogs.

“Hi! Beautiful day up here! Hey, just letting you know that this trail requires a leash this time of year. Your dogs are beautiful! Have a good hike.”

“You, too!” they called back to me with smiles.

Bing! Bing! Bing! It turns out that dog platitudes are the secret sauce – of course! In both cases where I tried this approach, they even thanked me for giving them a heads-up. Truthfully, a couple of these dogs were downright homely, but they were beautiful to their owners, and that’s all that matters — as any dog owner knows.

This dad is setting a good example for his son at Horsethief Butte. Leashing your dog on trails is a great way to help youngsters understand the importance of protecting wildlife and respecting other hikers

Take-aways from my self-deputized stint as leash-enforcer? Most people follow the rules, or are at least open to following the rules. Yes, there will always be those who knowingly exempt themselves from the rules the rest of us choose to live by (and yes, people with that mindset are having a bit of a moment in our society right now), but most people appreciate the concept of The Commons — and our responsibility as individuals to protect it from tragedy.

Better signage where leashes are required could build on these generally good intentions. At the Labyrinth Trail, the signage is a part of the problem. While simply stating regulations in rather dry fashion at trailheads is the default on our public lands, here’s another way this could be conveyed both firmly, and in a more explanatory way at the Labyrinth:

Clear, concise and visible…

Too pollyannish? Okay, here’s an alternative version for the more self-centered hiker with dogs:

When altruism doesn’t work, try fear…

These examples are also important in their location. By the time most people get to the Labyrinth trailhead, they have already hiked a fair distance an abandoned highway section that functions as the access trail from Rowland Lake. Before my creative license was applied, here’s the actual sign that greets hundreds of hikers who park here every week to hike the Labyrinth Trail:

The existing signpost could use an upgrade!

Fair enough, but this would be a great spot to post the leash rules where dog owners can still fetch (ahem) a leash from the car, or perhaps even decide to pick another trail. The existing sign post was installed by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, so it would require some agency coordination, as the Labyrinth Trail is on U.S. Forest Service land, but I suspect the two could agree in the interest of protecting wildlife.

Just beyond the “no overnight parking” signpost is one of the more obscure signs in the Columbia Gorge:

This is one solution to wood signposts that rot off at the base…

Whoever installed this hunting sign meant business: it’s bolted to a basalt boulder… which also means that hunting season is every season? Maybe this could also be a spot to talk about the on-leash season and its purpose?

Another problem with the Labyrinth leash rule is that it’s way too complicated for most to remember. On-leash season starts on December 1? Or was it December 30? And it ends on June 30 …? Or was it June 1? Or May 30? Add in the May 1to November 30 equestrian season, and this is the sort of trailhead word salad that people begin to tune out.

Meanwhile, just a few miles to the east (below) at the Catherine Creek trailhead, leashes are required year-round on trails that are inter-connected to the Labyrinth trial network (below).

The Forest Service has a tighter leash on its dog policies at nearby Catherine Creek, including a bit of explanation to educate pet owners

Though the conflicting policy is confusing, this is much better, and kudos to the Forest Service for drawing a bright line with leashes on the Catherine Creek end of the trail system. More leash-rule signs should follow the Catherine Creek model. Protecting wildlife and other hikers is important, and making this point clearly and prominently where people park, before they head up the trail, is as important at the message, itself.

The Catherine Creek policy also gets it right on leashes, overall. Given the many good reasons for alwayskeeping dogs on leash, complicated seasonal requirements don’t make much sense, and only serve undermine the main goal of protecting wildlife if hikers are confused.

Kids and wildlife are the best arguments for leashes

I have been charged many times by loose dogs whose owners are far behind or out of sight. Fortunately, I have never had to harm one by defending myself with a hiking pole, but I’ve come close on a couple occasions with a couple of big, snarling dogs. Inevitably, the owners catch up, and — usually embarrassed — apologize that “Fido is never like that at home!”

Think your dog is under “voice control”? That’s a fallacy – especially with a puppy like this one seen on the McIntyre Ridge trail. Were it to wander off and become lost, the chances of this young dog surviving in a wilderness would be slim

In these moments, I’m usually irritated enough that I don’t say anything at all, but in my new, more forward mindset, I already have a response: “But Fido isn’t home, is he? And neither are you. So unless he’s on a leash with you at the other end, this is how you should expect him to respond to a stranger. He’s a dog.”

Well, I’ll say that in my unspoken thought bubble, at least — but it’s quite true, and any dog owner should know this. Most dogs are not themselves when they’re out on a trail, away from home.

I’ve also watched several off-leash dogs chase down wildlife, from tiny pikas to rabbits and deer. I was hiking on Mount Hood with a friend once and they commented on the lack of marmots compared to Mount Rainier – a national park where dogs are simply not allowed on trails. I knew the reason, but a few years ago I was able to catch a canine culprit in the act just west of Timberline Lodge. These hikers (below) had climbed past me, and they were just beyond this section of trail when their roaming dog took off in a sprint.

Fido way out ahead, looking for wildlife to chase down..

I already had my camera out, and photographed the dog as it chased a terrorized marmot down the rocky slope on the right (see below), across the snowfield and up to the marmot’s den, under some boulders on the left side of the snowfield. The owners were yelling helplessly as the dog attempted to dig into the marmot’s den at least 100 yards away from them. For its part, the marmot climbed up on the boulder and tried frantically to distract the dog. Why? Probably because this was in late spring and it may have had a litter of pups in its den. Marmots give birth to litters of just 3-8 young every other year, so they’re highly vulnerable to natural predation, never mind unruly dogs.

[click here for a larger view]

None of this incident was the fault of the dog: it was just being a dog. The owners? They were just being thoughtless. Did they leash their dog after this incident? Nope. Why would they? The official pet policy for Mount Hood National Forest requires leashes “in developed areas” (that legal definition is left to visitors to figure that out). Otherwise, the Forest Service simply requires that “all dogs must be within sight of the owner and in complete voice control.”

That last part is the real misnomer. There is no such thing as “complete voice control” of a dog, especially out in nature. The illusion that this level of discipline even exists results in lots of sad signs posted at trailheads where an off-leash dog has been lost in the woods. The cruel reality is that most these lost dogs will likely die from exposure to the elements, injury or even predation — not something any dog owner would wish for their pet.

Posters like this get me every time, and I see them all the time at trailheads. Losing one pup in a rugged area like the Hatfield Wilderness is heartbreaking, but two? I don’t know if these dogs were ever found, but the risks of falling or getting stranded on a cliff in the Gorge have needlessly claimed many dogs over the years

While impacts on wildlife can seem a bit abstract when drawing the line on leashes, a more compelling argument comes when off-leash dogs terrorize young children on trails. It’s more common that most of us would like to believe, and usually only reported when a child is injured (or worse) by an off-leash dog. Young kids are disproportionally attacked by dogs compared to adults, accounting for more than half of all dog bite victims. Kids four years and under are also the most likely to be fatally attacked, a horrific outcome to consider.

A more far-reaching impact is on the untold number of young kids who are traumatized by an off-leash, out-of-control dog on a trail. This isn’t even a factor in most land agency leash rules, but for our broader society, it could be the most lasting. It’s so widespread, it has a name: cynophobia, or the fear of dogs, with most adults reporting that this condition began with a terrifying childhood experience. An off-leash dog aggressively rushing a youngster on the trail might not result in a dog bite, but it could needlessly be cheating that child of a lifetime of the joy that having a pet offers by instilling deep fear from an early, scary encounter.

Young kids and off-leash dogs — especially big dogs — don’t mix on trails. These moms are setting a great example on the Wahclella Falls trail by leashing the family dog on this popular path

With a crazy quilt of uneven, confusing and mostly ineffective public land leash rules, most trail users are poorly informed on the true risks and impacts of having their dogs off-leash, while some folks are just plain defiant their perceived right to let their dog run loose.

Only in our national parks (and a few local parks, like Metro’s in the Portland region) is there a serious effort to manage dogs, and usually with a fair amount of grousing from dog owners. While the National Park Service has been especially fearless in how they manage dogs, other state and federal land agencies continue to be wary of confronting the issue. So, is this a problem that can even be fixed?

It’s on us…

Unfortunately, the public agency reluctance won’t be solved anytime soon, as the lack of continuity in leash rules simply reflects the lack of consensus – and knowledge — among dog owners. Therefore, it’s really up to us as hikers and dog owners to change the culture of off-leash dogs. The days when dogs could run free on our trails on public lands are long over, both because of the sheer number of people using our trails, but also because we now know of the impact it has on wildlife, the environment and our dogs.

That’s not a pack on the hiker in the back — it’s their injured 30-lb dog that they were carrying out of the Mount Hood Wilderness. Keeping a dog on-leash is the best way to keep it safe from injury on the trail – though in this case, the trail proved too much for the dog, and it would have been a safer call to simply leave Fido at home for this hike

Is it possible to foster a new, grassroots leash ethic for dogs? Of course! After all, not many people toss garbage out the window when driving these days, though this was common practice until the anti-litter campaigns of the 1960s and early 70s. Those efforts grew from local, grassroots efforts that changed both our ethics and laws. Recycling began in the same way in the 1970s, first as a grassroots movement, and eventually transforming how governments manage waste collection.

Hikers with dogs began their own ethics conversion in the late 1990s with poop bags, an outgrowth of the Leave No Trace movement that has now become mainstream. Yes, people forget to pick up their poop bags on the way out (pro tip: tie them to your pack — yes, you read that correctly), but only a few leave them behind when you consider how many dogs and hikers are using our most popular trails. The overall benefit is still very good.

This hiker set their poop bag on a stump, presumably to help remember it on the way out?

These hikers went for strength in numbers, but the best plan is to tie it to your pack. Nobody wants to see forgotten poop bags on the trail!

How do we start a new on-leash ethics movement? Why not online? I probably don’t have the pull with Mark Zuckerberg to add a trending “My dog is leashed!” badge to Facebook or Instagram, but short of that… why, I can at least post some handy (and somewhat facetious) clip ‘n save wallet cards on my obscure blog to download and share!

I’ve provided two versions to reflect our divisive times. The first appeals to the recent lurch toward self-involvement and me-ism that is reigning in our current political climate. This clip-n-save card speaks to the self-interest in all of us – like it or not:

Card for the times..?

But for those who seek a higher philosophical plane — and perhaps defying the current political zeitgeist — please join me in carrying this more altruistic version:

Card for the caring!

Conflicted? You can carry both! Better yet, we can all simply adopt these principles in our everyday trail ethics. Whatever our motivation, the facts argue for keeping dogs leashed on trails, simple as that. The first step is knowing the facts — clip those cards — and especially the risks of letting Fido run wild. Who knows, we might just change our little corner of the world?

The author back in 2009 with our big (and little) dog pack — Borzoi sisters Joker and Jester and our little rescue Whippet Jinx. He thought he was a borzoi, too… and so did the girls!

Thanks for reading this far, and for caring about our public lands in WyEast Country. I hope to see you and your (lovingly leashed) dogs on the trail, sometime!
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Postscript: I’ll close this article with another acknowledgment that our federal lands workforce are under unprecedented, highly personal attack by a new administration stacked with political appointees chosen for their radical, fringe views toward the environment, and who are openly hostile to the very concept of public lands that belong to everyone. The attacks are reckless, cruel and purposely vindictive to the perceived “enemies” of the regime.

In just the past two weeks, thousands of Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service workers have been fired for the crime of being recently hired, or having accepted a promotion or new position. It’s outrageous, illogical and probably illegal, but that doesn’t make it any easier for the public servants who have been targeted.

U.S. Representative Cliff Bentz answering to a one of four overflow town hall crowds last week across Eastern Oregon that confronted him over the attack on the federal workforce last week

We’ll be on defense on this front for the next few years, unfortunately. So, at this moment, it’s especially important to share our unequivocal support for the federal workers who have devoted their careers to caring for our public lands. We can all do that with kind words when we see them working in the field, by helping them care for the land, and by pushing back on disinformation wherever we see it.

Hundreds turnout out in Gresham last weekend to press freshman U.S. Representative Maxine Dexter to do more to push back on the attack on federal agencies (photo: OPB News)

We can also act by voicing our support for public lands and federal workers to our congressional representatives and senators. It really does work. Oregon’s lone Republican in Congress recently got a loud taste of it when he ventured home to what he thought would be a just another series of safe, sleepy town halls in his Eastern Oregon district. Instead, he faced overflow crowds of angry, deeply concerned constituents.

Other Oregon representatives have seen similar town hall turnouts and are reporting thousands of phone calls from concerned constituents, and they are scrambling for ways to be accountable. This is already having an impact! More to come, of course, but the tide does seem to be turning…

_________________

Tom Kloster • March 2025

Secrets of the Fire at Catherine Creek

February 14, 2025March 30, 2025 / Tom Kloster / 9 Comments

Green regrowth has already returned to the upper meadows at Catherine Creek, just three months after the October 2024 wildfire

Preface: our federal workforce is under unprecedented, highly personal attack by the new administration. The attacks are reckless, cruel and purposely vindictive to the perceived “enemies” of the regime. Many of the newly appointed cabinet officials in the Departments of Interior and Agriculture were specifically selected for their radical, fringe views on the environment and are openly hostile to the very concept of public lands that belong to everyone. We’ll be on defense on this front for the next four years, unfortunately.

Like many articles posted on the blog, I’ve shared my views in this piece on how our public lands at Catherine Creek might be managed in the future. At this moment in our history, however, I also want to open with my unequivocal support for the federal workers who have devoted their careers to caring for our public lands. Over the past three weeks, I’ve seen them proudly and professionally continue to do their work, despite the hostility and mockery of their commitment to public service from the new administration.

U.S. Forest Service workers conduct a controlled burn in Ponderosa country (photo: Deschutes Collaborative)

We’re at a low point as a country, for sure, but I know that we will outlast this regime. Once they have been removed from power, I also believe we will not only restore what damage has been done, but also thrive in a renewed commitment to our public lands. It does (unfortunately) seem that as a nation, sometimes we don’t know what we’ve got until it’s gone. In the meantime, we’ll need to support our federal workers while they are under siege. We can all do that with kind words when we see them out in the field, helping them care for the land, and by sending our support for public lands to our congressional representative and senators. It really does work.

Thanks for indulging me – and now, on to the secrets of the recent wildfire at Catherine Creek…

____________

The opening photo for this article is from a mid-January ramble through the sprawling western meadows of the Catherine Creek savannah, located in the eastern Columbia Gorge near the small town of Lyle. Just three months after a fire swept through the area, only the singed lower limbs on the Ponderosa Pine grove in the distance provide a hint to what unfolded here.

Last October, a wildfire at Catherine Creek was sparked by a prescribed burn that spun out of control, adding to the continuing struggle for public acceptance of controlled burning. The science is definitive, however: controlled fires are the most important tool in restoring forest health and preventing large wildfires in the Western U.S., where our forests are suffering the effects of more than a century of aggressive fire suppression.

While there is plenty to talk about (and learn) on living with fire in the West, this article will focus very locally on some surprising effects on the ground of the fire at Catherine Creek. The meadows are already rapidly rebounding from the event, and there are fascinating traces from the fire that help explain why steep meadows and open savannah exist in the eastern Gorge. Toward the end of the article, I’ll also include some tips on how to see this transformation for yourself, close-up.

The fire…

Early stages of the October 2024 fire at Catherine Creek, just after 4 PM, before it swept across the upper meadows (U.S. Forest Service)

The fire at Catherine Creek was officially named the “Top of the World Fire”. For simplicity, I will simply refer to it as the Catherine Creek fire in this article. The wildfire began at about 4 PM on Monday, October 14, 2024, when unexpected winds lifted embers beyond the boundaries of a controlled burn the Forest Service had been lit that morning.

Once the wildfire was ignited, it quickly spread east and downhill, across the open grassland savannah of Catherine Creek and toward Highway 14. As it grew, more than a hundred firefighters used air tankers, fire trucks and bulldozers to contain the wildfire over the next few days, finally achieving containment by the end of the week.

Late afternoon view of the fire from across the river as it moved into the savannah (Facebook/Susan Garrett Crowley)

Residents of the town of Mosier, located across the Columbia River, had a front row seat to the event. Their images of the fire soon showed up on social media, along with frustration and anger toward the Forest Service for conducting a controlled burn in windy conditions. While these burns are carefully planned with local conditions in mind (including soil moisture, air temperature, humidity and wind speeds), fire can still escape the controlled area, even when all of these variables for a safe burn are met. After all, fire cannot always be controlled in any setting, even with the best of our modern-day technology at hand.

The Forest Service estimates that about 4,500 prescribed burns are conducted across the country each year, covering some 1.3 million acres across the National Forest System. For comparison, that’s roughly equivalent to the entirety of Mount Hood National Forest being treated each year. This might be a surprise to some, given the continued controversy surrounding the practice, but the Forest Service argues that nearly all prescribed fires – 99.8 percent, according to the agency — are carried out as planned.

By early evening the fire had progressed nearly to Highway 14 (Facebook/Mark Paine)

The future of our Western forests looks very challenging for the Forest Service and other land managers. More than a century of accumulated forest debris, an overgrown understory of brush and thickets of unhealthy trees in overplanted clearcuts have created a tinderbox for public land agencies to contend with.

The accelerating effects of climate change will make their job ever more complex as our public land agencies race to reduce the risks of large-scale wildfires with controlled burns, meanwhile continually evolving the practice to somehow achieve the near-perfect success rate needed to maintain public support. Add an ever-growing number of homes being built in the forest margins (often called the wildland-urban interface), and it is hard to imagine that we won’t see future controlled burns escape their planned boundaries.

A closer look…

The effects of fire suppression since the early 1900s are especially pronounced on the east slopes of the Cascades. Here, the forests are dominated by fire-dependent conifers like Ponderosa Pine and Western Larch, but these species have been choked out across much of their habitat by unchecked growth of true firs and other fire-vulnerable species that are crowding east side forests today.

Scorched lower limbs on these Ponderosa Pine are the mark of a beneficial, mostly low-intensity savannah fire

The comparatively dry climate of east-side forests also means more accumulation of dead forest debris that would quickly be covered in moss and succumb to decay on the wet, western slopes of the mountains. This is why fire is so important as part of the east side ecosystem, and why species like Ponderosa Pine have evolved to thrive with fire, not despite it.

The burn scars at Catherine Creek provide a perfect living laboratory to see the beneficial effects of wildfire, firsthand and in real-time. While I’ve tracked the 2011 Dollar Lake Fire on Mount Hood and the 2017 Eagle Creek Fire in this blog to learn from the recovery in those respective ecosystems, the fire at Catherine Creek provides some new insights into the role of fire in the eastern Gorge savannah.

The first thing I noticed on my recent visit were the singed lower limbs on all of the Ponderosa Pine trees that survived the fire. These trees are known for their thick, fire-resistant bark, and in this case, the fire was cool enough to burn just the lower limbs on many of the trees. Most of the large trees here survived because the fire didn’t reach up into their crowns. This is known as “crowning” and something that is usually fatal to a big conifer. The recent fires on Mount Hood and in the Eagle Creek Fire experienced hundreds of acres of crown fires, where the entire forest was killed.

Scorched lower limbs are a good thing for this Ponderosa Pine, as losing these branches will protect it from crown fires in future events

The fact that many of the large Ponderosa Pine even had green limbs all the way to the ground is evidence that a significant fire hasn’t swept through here for some time. Most of the singed limbs on these trees have likely been killed and will eventually fall from the trees. In the near term, they have lost some of the green canopy needed to help the trees survive, but recovering over the long term, they will also become more fire resilient, with their lowest limbs much higher on the tree, and thus out of reach for moderate fires like this one.

The suddenly bright green surface of the burned savannah meadows also has a story to tell. This isn’t simply grass, but also an infinite number of seedlings exploding from the cleared soil, even during the cold winter months. It’s hard to know what species these will mature into this spring, but it’s a fair bet that the wildflowers this area is known for will be even more spectacular in coming years.

Some grass is sprouting in the burned meadows, but also a lot of tiny wildflower seedlings just three months after the fire

Another surprising story from the fire is how rocks and rocky areas intensified the effects of the flames on vegetation. Throughout the burn, you can find rocks that were superheated by the fire, then stayed hot relative to the surrounding soil after the flames had passed, completely killing vegetation in a ring around the rock (below). It’s hard to know how this will affect the recovering plant community, but in an ecosystem where fire was once common, it surely must have some role in determining which plants thrive most in rocky areas.

Rocks within the burn intensified the impact of the fire, leaving scorched rings like this where vegetation was completely killed

The dripline beneath Ponderosa Pine trees also proved to be a surprising hot spot, with vegetation and sometimes even the duff layer completely burned away. This seems to have resulted mostly from an over-accumulation of wood debris and a blanket of dried pine needles that simply burned hotter and longer during the event. These burn rings underscore the importance of restoring fire to this ecosystem, and not allowing wood debris to build up under these trees to a level where they cannot survive when fire returns.

The charred burn ring under this Ponderosa Pine was less extensive due to the tree’s relative youth, with less dry fuel accumulation to intensify the burn

The charred ring under this part of large Ponderosa Pine is more extensive, burning down to bare rock and mineral soil, due to the larger supply of dry fuel that had accumulated here over many years

One of the most fascinating stories the burn scars can tell us is how downed trees across the savannah landscape affected the intensity of the burn and put nearby, living trees at risk. The blackened swath adjacent to the pair of large Ponderosas shown below marks where a fallen tree burned hotter and much longer than the overall fire, scorching the standing trees halfway up their canopy. These trees will likely survive, but the recovery of the tree on the right will be slower as it struggles to rebuild its living canopy.

A downed tree that left the charred scar shown in this view burned long and hot enough to scorch branches halfway up these nearby Ponderosa Pine

This view (below) of a downed tree scar is typical of dozens across the burned savannah of the Catherine Creek fire. This view is looking from the base of what was once a fallen tree, with a prominent hole in the ground and upturned soil and rocks in the foreground. These mark where tree roots had pulled this material from the ground when the tree originally fell, but are now burned away, leaving only the pile of soil and rock.

Burn scars from downed trees like this are found across much of the savannah area of the Catherine Creek fire, with the trees almost completely reduced to ashes that have since washed away during winter rainstorms. This view from the base of the tree shows the characteristic hole and upturned soil left by the root ball that has since been burned away

This next image (below) is the reverse view of the same fallen tree, now looking from the top. The very tip of this downed tree in the foreground somehow managed to survive the fire, unburned. Even the shape of the fallen tree is apparent in the pyramid-shaped burn scar.

This view of the previous burn scar shows the perspective from the top of the former tree, with only the unburned tip left to tell the story

The bare soil created by these intensively burned patches surely serves a niche in a grassland savannah ecosystem that relies on fire to rejuvenate. I’ll be tracking the recovery of these areas over the next few years to see if certain plants are especially adapted to regenerate in these spots – and conversely, whether these badly burned areas open the door to invasive plants, one of the liabilities of intense fires.

The downed trees and their distinctive burn patterns within the Catherine Creek burn are not an anomaly. While they likely went unnoticed to most who visited this area before the fire, there were hundreds of downed trees spread across the open savannah. This aerial view (below) is just a small area, and yet there were more than 30 downed trees here before the fire (marked by the arrows). All were burned. Their sheer number underscores how the absence of fire has allowed dry debris to accumulate here in recent decades.

There were hundreds of downed trees across the savannah section of the Catherine Creek burn before the fire, mostly unnoticed by hikers traveling through. The arrows mark each blowdown

[click here for a larger view]

Another takeaway from the aerial sample is the uniformity in how these trees fell. Nearly all of them point eastward, revealing the predominant winds from the west in this part of the Gorge – especially in the winter, when soils are saturated and storms are frequent and often powerful.

Surprisingly, some of the big Ponderosa Pine that fared most poorly were growing in stands (below). Here, the combination of their accumulated fuel of dried limbs and needle beds around their trunks combined with fallen trees within the stand for a fire too hot for these trees to survive. Their low canopy – a product of not having fire present until now – also made them vulnerable to the hotter burning that happened here.

These trees help tell the story of why Ponderosa Pine are more often solitary trees within the savannah ecosystem. Not only do they have less competition from other trees for water and nutrients, they are also less vulnerable to spot fires from accumulated debris and fallen trees.

Growing in groves usually helps trees survive by protecting them from wind, but here their close proximity meant a combined debris accumulation — including downed trees — that burned hot and long, killing the largest Ponderosa Pine trees in this group

Another look at the same grove shows how several downed trees combined to create a fiery oven that few trees survived

Young Ponderosa Pine in the burned savannah have their own story to tell about the Catherine Creek fire. This tree (below) lost roughly half its green canopy, but the top survived the fire – so far, at least. This suggests that the flames rolled through fairly quickly. The lack of a burn ring also shows that this tree was too young to have accumulated much dried debris beneath its small canopy. With repeated, low-intensity fires, this tree can continue this pattern until its canopy is high enough from the ground to survive fire events fully intact. This is the classic cycle of a mature Ponderosa Pine forest under the natural conditions in which the species evolved.

Even very young trees can benefit from fire by shedding their lower canopy — if they can survive the loss of so many limbs

This grove of young Ponderosa Pine (below) fared worse, but it wasn’t due to their close proximity to one another, or even a combined accumulation of debris that made them vulnerable. Instead, it was their proximity to a very large, downed tree – perhaps their parent – that burned long and hot enough to badly scorch them. Of the group, only the tree on the left seems to have enough living canopy to survive.

This group of young Ponderosa Pine trees might have fared better had they not been growing around a large, downed tree that burned long and hot just to the right

This view of the same grove of small trees shows the burn scar of a large downed tree that sealed their fate was. The wide shape of the burn scar clearly shows that the tree still had many limbs intact that only added to the heat it produced

Though the recovering meadows in the Catherine Creek burn are rapidly concealing the extent of the burn, the edge of the burn zone can be found by surviving blowdowns, like this one (below), just a few feet beyond the burn scars. This ancient downfall also underscores just how long it has been since fire was a force in this ecosystem – this tree has been lying here for decades.

The hundreds of downed trees that burned across the Catherine Creek savannah looked something like this before the fire. The age of this very old tree skeleton shows that beneficial wildfires have been suppressed here for decades

The fire at Catherine Creek didn’t expand far into Oregon White Oak habitat, the other iconic tree species in the eastern Columbia River Gorge. Like Ponderosa Pine, these trees have evolved with fire, and require regular, low-intensity burns for their health. They have deep taproots that help them retain moisture, even during the dry summer season, and corky, protective bark that helps insulate them from low-intensity fire, much like Ponderosa Pine with its thick, orange bark. Oregon White Oak also has less resin in its wood and leaves, making these trees less flammable and prone to crowning than other tree species.

The burn pattern under this Oregon White Oak (below) is much like that of the nearby Ponderosa Pine, and suggest that it, too, had an accumulation of debris that burned hotter and longer, thanks to fire suppression. These oaks also have fire resistant buds, so I’ll be watching to see how well this fire-impacted tree rebounds in spring.

Oregon White Oaks have their own built-in fire resistance, and are adapted to low-intensity brushfires. This tree will likely survive the Catherine Creek burn

Like Ponderosa Pine, our Oregon White Oaks also benefit from having competing brush and understory plants cleared with regular, low intensity fires. In the Willamette Valley, where Oregon White Oak trees grows to be very large, scientists estimate that low-intensity wildfires burned every three to five years prior to white settlement of the Pacific Northwest. Most of these fires were set by indigenous people to maintain the Oak savannah landscape in the valley. I suspect the same was true for the oak groves on the east slopes of the Cascades, as well – especially in the Gorge, where a large indigenous population thrived.

One survivor of the Catherine Creek fire that caught might eye is the humble Ponderosa Pine shown below. It had clearly seen some rough times it its life, losing its top at some point, perhaps to an ice storm, wind or even a lightning strike. The result is an unusually short tree for its age, making it more vulnerable to fire. Still, it appears to have survived the October fire.

This stunted Ponderosa Pine has already suffered adversity in its life on the Catherine Creek savannah. Despite this tree’s humble height and low canopy, it did retain some of its healthy crown after the fire

From the uphill side, this old tree seems to have lost minimal canopy, but viewed from the downhill side (below), the fire had a much greater impact, singeing close to half the canopy. Like most of the Pondersosa Pine, there seems to have been enough accumulation of old limbs and dried pine needles beneath this tree to allow the fire to burn much hotter and longer, and the tree’s low canopy made it still more vulnerable to the heat.

This view of the same stunted Pondera Pine shows a greater impact of the fire on the downhill side of the tree, where accumulated debris likely burned longer and hotter

A close look at the trunk on this old, diminutive pine shows just how important Ponderosa bark is to the survival of this species. In a few spots (below) where some of the heavily charred bark has flaked away, the layers of bark underneath are still completely unburned. Therefore, if this tree has enough remaining green canopy to survive the fire, it should have the intact trunk and root system needed to growth and recover. I will be rooting for this survivor!

Ponderosa Pine bark on living trees is remarkably fire-resistant. Just beneath the badly blackened surface, the bark is intact and healthy

It will take years for the full effects of the fire to be known at Catherine Creek, but just three months after the burn, the area is looking both resilient and rejuvenated as open grassland savannah. One hopeful outcome from this event is that it might open the door to future controlled burns on other savannah landscapes in the Gorge in the years to come as we watch and learn from the recovery here.

How to tour the Catherine Creek burn area?

Scorched trail sign in the upper meadows at Catherine Creek

The Catherine Creek trail network can be confusing to explore, as there is both an abundance of trails and a dearth of trail signage! This loop takes you through some of the finest scenery and provides a close look at the 2024 burn recovery, though none of the trail junctions are signed. The loop shown in red works best when hiked clockwise, climbing about 800 feet in elevation in the first mile through mostly open savannah, then dropping the same distance in the remaining 1.3 miles, along the rugged Rowland Wall.

[click here for a large, printable version of this map]

While the mileage is relatively modest, the return loop along the rim is rocky, so an option for the less sure-footed is to simply go as far as you feel like on the first leg to the upper meadows, then return the way you came. One important wayfinding tip in the absence of signs is to look for the critical junction at the 0.2 mile mark when you reach a group of seasonal ponds. Watch for a path that heads right, along the ponds, then climbs a slope to begin following a rocky rim on the way to the savannah section.

Ponds at Catherine Creek mark the start of the loop trail route

The junction at the upper end of the loop can also be hard to find when the meadow grass gets tall, but watch for it on the left when you pass under the obvious transmission lines, roughly halfway between two large transmission towers. Be sure to print a copy of the above map to keep in your pocket, too!

The west leg of the loop, along the Rowland Rim escarpment, also provides fascinating views into dozens of pits in the talus slope below that likely served ceremonial or burial purposes for indigenous people who once lived here in very large numbers. On a clear day, Mount Hood is on the horizon, across the Columbia River. In spring, the entire loop is decorated with wildflowers.

The view from the Rowland Wall section of the hiking loop features Mount Hood (among clouds in this photo) and a maze of ceremonial pits in the talus fields, below, left over the centuries by indigenous peoples

You’ll also be sharing the trail with bikes and possibly horses if you’re on foot. Like all of the eastern Columbia River Gorge, this tick, poison oak and rattlesnake country, with the usual considerations.

Enjoy… and please be kind to your federal lands workers!

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Tom Kloster • February 2025

Incident at Starvation Creek

February 2, 2025February 2, 2025 / Tom Kloster / 10 Comments

Foggy day at Starvation Creek…

What’s wrong with this photo? Okay, plenty from a photographer’s perspective – starting with the water spot on the lens and a picnic table sticking into the photo. But it turns out the REAL problem that foggy day last December at Starvation Creek Falls was happening BEHIND me. This is the story of how my backpack was stolen by a bold theft ring… and how I got it back!

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I was standing out in the middle of Starvation Creek on Christmas Eve last month with my camera on a tripod for long exposures. The Gorge streams were running high after weeks of steady rainfall, and I was mostly trying to keep spray off the lens that day. My embarrassingly large, overly stuffed winter backpack was sitting maybe 20 feet above me on the short user trail that follows the east side of the creek in this popular rest stop – just out of earshot. That’s where things went very wrong.

At some point, a woman across the creek on the paved “official” trail was waving to me. The falls and creek were very noisy with all the extra runoff, so I couldn’t hear her at all. I thought she was asking if she was stepping into my photo, so I yelled “no” and gave her a thumbs up. Well, it turns out she was asking if the two “kids” behind me were with me – I didn’t even know they were there! I learned this unfortunate reality a few minutes later when I turned around to discover that my pack had disappeared.

The scene of the pack heist at Starvation Creek…

[click here for a large version]

It was so brazen that at first I was stunned, thinking it must have rolled into the creek, instead. But when it was clear it had been stolen, I realized I might catch up the thieves at the Starvation Creek parking area.

So, I sprinted back to the trailhead and, once again, met the woman who had called to me from across the creek. This is when I learned what she had been shouting to me about. She was very helpful and able to describe “two teenagers, one with bushy dark hair”. Critically, she also said they had gone east on the paved trail Historic Highway State Trail – away from the Starvation Creek trailhead that was just a few hundred feet away, and toward the next trailhead to the east, at Viento State Park, about one mile away.

Determined to head them off at the pass, I thanked her and jumped in the car, roaring east to Viento State Park. Along the way, I did a mental inventory of all that was in my pack: pretty much EVERYTHING but my camera, tripod and a car key that I always keep in a zipped pants pocket. My phone, wallet, house keys, camera lenses and a bunch of other gear — along with a fairly new winter pack that I loved were all gone. PRIMAL SCREAM MOMENT! (…and boy, did it feel good!)

Sign at the Viento trailhead. Safeguard your valuables, indeed..!

Within a couple minutes, I pulled into the Viento trailhead, and — no cars! Weird. But knowing there was no way they could have made it this far on foot so quickly, I then circled under the highway to the north Viento Campground, located on the opposite side, to see if their getaway car was parked there.

As I approached the north campground entrance, an older, black sedan was heading toward me along the main access road. I waved my arm out the window to flag them down to see if they’d seen a couple teenagers with my large grey pack in tow. I could tell the driver wasn’t going to stop for me – frustrating — so I crowded over the center line, partly blocking the road, and held my hand up for him to stop. After all, who doesn’t stop when someone is waving for help?

North Viento campground… where I encountered a sketchy dude…

The driver finally stopped, rolled down his window and responded with deadpan “no, I didn’t see any kids.” He was a sketchy guy and his car was trashed inside, so, a few alarms went off in my head. He also clearly just wanted to leave. However, there was no way he could have gotten this far on foot in the amount of time that had elapsed since my pack was snatched, and he was more like 30-something — not remotely a teenager. So, I said “thanks” and circled back to Starvation Creek to see if I could trap the teen thieves on the other end!

This entailed backtracking five miles west on the freeway to the Wyeth exit, then doubling back four miles east to return to Starvation Creek State Park, which is only accessible eastbound. This turned out to be a VERY roundabout route when attempting to break up a backpack-stealing ring. I thus “may” have exceeded the speed limit slightly en route — and also let of a few more Chewbacca-esque PRIMAL SCREAMS! (…they did seem to help!)

Whew… finally back to Starvation Creek!

Then came the serendipitous part of this saga: when I finally reached the Starvation Creek exit and was pulling in, the SAME SKETCHY DUDE in the black BMW from Viento was leaving! He was pulling out at exactly the moment I pulled in! My window was down, and we locked eyes as we passed each other. He then floored it onto the freeway ramp and I did a Dukes-of-Hazard-esque U-turn in the middle of the entrance road (okay, that’s how it was in my imagination, at least) and sped after him (that part is very true)!

The scene of the chance re-encounter at Starvation Creek

The guy had barely merged onto the freeway when I saw something roll out of his passenger door and onto the shoulder… MY PACK!! I skidded off to grab it, threw it on the passenger seat, and jumped back in the car to resume the chase. I really had no idea what had been taken from it at that point in the saga and I was determined to at least get the license plate number on the getaway car.

Heading east in pursuit, I will admit to autobahn-like speeds, yet I never did catch up with the guy. However, to my great relief, my pack had held together despite being dumped from speeding vehicle, and I had already found my house key and iPhone in the top of my pack. Before dumping it with the pack, the thieves had clearly tried to disable my phone by smashing it against something (the dash of their car?), but didn’t even make dent (…thank you, Apple and polycarbonate screen protectors!).

Forensic map of the great pack heist and subsequent perp chase…

[click here for a large version]

When I finally gave up the chase and pulled off the freeway at the west end of Hood River, I was able to do a better inventory. ALL of my camera great was still in there and intact, despite the pack being tossed out of a moving car at freeway speeds, unzipped! Only my wallet was gone, along with a few hundred bucks in cash, my driver ID, a couple blank checks and some credit cards. I can handle that!

I then spent some quality time on my newly recovered phone with my wife, who was a complete ROCK STAR in getting credit cards frozen while I was still driving home. She was still on the phone trudging through that thankless task when I pulled in later that afternoon. Even better? She had homemade clam chowder in sourdough bread bowls waiting for me! That definitely took the sting out of an otherwise crappy Christmas Eve..!

A reasonable facsimile of my calming, much-appreciated Christmas Eve dinner… (photo: QVC)

On my trip back to Portland I also called the Hood River County Sheriff to report the theft, and this is where it got really interesting. After my initial call, a deputy called me back within 20 minutes to get a more detailed account. I described the sketchy guy in what I remembered to be a black, older BMW with Washington plates. This is also when I described the contents of my wallet and remembered the two blank checks (side note: if you’ve read this far, don’t carry blank checks with you, as that mistake meant racing back to Portland to reach the bank before early closing – it was Christmas Eve, after all – to completely close our checking account and open a new one).

My new heroes! I took this photo of a Hood River County deputy near Bennett Pass several years ago, patrolling the old Bennett Pass Road.

Not long after the phone call, the deputy texted me two suspect photos! One guy was a clear match, with long, greasy black hair, where the other had sort of a buzz cut. I texted the deputy that, to my eye, they were the same guy, but slightly different angles and with radically different hair. Bingo! The deputy replied “I thought you might notice that. Yes, this is the same man. Do you think you could identify the vehicle you saw in a photo?” I replied “HELLLL YESSSSS, DEP-YOO-TEEEEE!!!” (Okay, so really, I just texted “Yes, happy to!”).

That’s where it stands. I’ve since sent documentation from a couple attempts to use the now-useless credit cards to the Hood River County Sherriff, but no word on a car to identify. That said, the mere fact that I talked to an actual police officer and that the ringleader in this theft was already on their radar was all I really needed to hear.

Lessons learned?

Takeaways from this saga? I don’t think this episode changes my practice of keeping my valuables in my pack when I’m on a trail vs. carrying them on me when I traveling to and from a trailhead. The exception on the trail is my car key, which I keep in a zipped pants pocket. Always. I shudder to think how things would have played out had I not had my car key! I also learned the hard way not to carry any checks with me. Nobody uses them much anymore, and they completely expose you if they are stolen along with ID. Lesson learned!

Reunited gear! This camera kit has traveled a lot of miles on my back, great that I was able to recover it!

It was also a pretty weird set of circumstances that day, so I’ve been careful not to overthink any takeaways going forward. I usually keep my pack a few feet away when it’s not on my back – and it’s almost always on my back when I’m hiking. That said, it is kind of creepy that the BMW dude’s accomplices seems to have followed me up that side trail with the intent of stealing my pack. This unfolded within a couple hundred yards of a freeway rest stop at Starvation Creek, so that’s a driving factor compared to being off on some trail, far from thieves and their getaway drivers.

The other twist is that the BMW guy and his accomplices seem to have been using the paved trail linking Starvation Creek State Park to Viento State Park as a getaway route. Now that I know it was the same sketchy dude I had originally questioned at Viento all along, my guess is that after encountering me, he called his accomplices while they were still on their escape route and told them to turn back to Starvation Creek, where he would pick them up. If so, he likely saw ME following him onto the freeway, backtracking the same route he was taking to pick them up! That might explain why they were able to toss the pack so quickly, including the bashed-up phone.

My main lasting souvenir from the episode is this water bottle that took a hard hit when my pack hit pavement on the shoulder of I-84. It survived with a few deep scratches to join me on many more adventures.

If this is all true, another theory I have is that they might have been using that side path along Starvation Creek as simply as a place to dump stolen items looted from cars parked at the rest stop to retrieve later. The side path is rarely used this time of year, and there are some truck-sized boulders with dry “caves” underneath them that could be used for precisely this purpose.

If this theory proves true, it could explain how they stumbled upon me and my pack, and then realized that I had my back to them and couldn’t hear anything – sort of a chance opportunity compared to the much more common smash-and-grab theft from cars that continues to be a real problem in the Columbia River Gorge.

My original winter pack didn’t fare so well from being tossed from the getaway car, so it has since been honorably retired and replaced with this identical edition. Looking forward to many more adventures with this new friend!

I’ve shared this strange story with friends and family since the event, and chided by a few for taking chase in the way I did – that I was taking great risk in doing so. That’s a personal choice we all make, of course, but I have a good sense of situational safety and my mission wasn’t to confront the thieves, it was to identify them via the plates on their getaway car. The only face-to-face exchange I had was with the ringleader, and at that point I had no idea he was part of the theft, nor did he have reason to suspect that I did. Instead, he simply seemed very nervous and eager to get away both times that I made eye contact, not to engage me. I have no regrets, all things considered.

So, is a pain in the ass to lose your wallet on a supposed Christmas Eve escape to nature? Absolutely. But it could have been much worse, AND I’m also ridiculously, infinitely and disproportionately fortunate in this often very unfair world. Episodes like this only serve drive that point home more profoundly. In the larger picture of what really matters, I will take this bit of Christmas Eve coal and relish it with all that is good in my life.

Making our Trailheads More Secure?

The lovely gateway to the Historic Columbia River Trail at Starvation Creek Falls. Should anyone have to fear being a theft victim by simply stopping here to enjoy this public space?

I’ll end this article with some broader takeaways on the theft problem that continues to plague visitors to the Columbia River Gorge. Yes, there are break-ins on some of the more popular trailheads on Mount Hood and elsewhere, but the Gorge has become notorious for the number of smash-and-grab thefts that occur every year.

Why the Gorge? Part of the answer lies in the sheer number of visitors and proximity to Portland and booming Gorge towns like Hood River. Quick access to I-84 makes it especially easy for smash-and-grab thieves to exit the crime scene and disappear into nearby towns within a few minutes. Over the years, Multnomah County, Hood River County and the Oregon State Police have periodically stepped-up their patrols, but all three law enforcement agencies face budget realities that make it hard to maintain steady patrols at Gorge recreation sites. Break-ins happen in a matter of a minute or two, and there’s really no way that current law enforcement can provide enough presence to deter that.

The beautiful new trailhead at Wyeth had barely opened when broken car window glass began to appear in 2020

While it’s true that property crimes are petty and mostly a nuisance, they do have an impact on the tourism economy of the Gorge communities that is concerning. This is especially true for high-dollar visitors from out of state or abroad who come here only to have their travel belongings stolen by local thieves. That’s the kind of experience that makes a return visit less likely, and is also likely to be shared in our modern world of social media and online travel reviews.

One option for expanding traditional law enforcement is a special patrol dedicated to the Gorge and independently funded through a lodging tax within the Gorge cities. Nobody likes raising taxes and policy makers fear even asking the voters the question, but many tourism-based communities have long enacted lodging taxes as a way to provide services that are especially connected to tourism. Perhaps this could fund special units based within the two county Sheriff departments dedicated to the theft problem?

Another approach that hikers have talked about for many years are trailhead cameras. Simply the existence of cameras could have an effect, just as photo radar cameras on our urban roads slow travel speeds and red light-running, whether they’re on or not. Cameras are gradually starting to show up in recreation areas around the country, too, so the idea does seem to be catching on – if only through necessity.

The blue sign on the right appeared at the Wahclella Falls trailhead in 2016,

The surveillance (or at least the sign) at Wahclella Falls has since disappeared. It wasn’t there when my own car was broken into at this trailhead in April 2021.

The Forest Service placed the above camera notice at the Wahclella Falls trailhead in 2016, though I don’t know if the signs (or cameras?) have since been maintained. My own car was broken into at this trailhead on a beautiful Sunday morning in April 2021, and the signs (and cameras?) had been pulled at that time. I mostly suffered a smashed window in that incident, as I think the thieves were likely spooked by arriving hikers before they could do much looting. The story might have been quite different on a quiet weekday morning.

The 2016 sign at Wahclella Falls (and any other site) could also have been more effective in deterring thieves had it been posted prominently along the entrance road, and not lost in this blizzard of trail notices that even law-abiding visitors rarely stop to read. I suspect land managers are wary about making these too prominent, as placing surveillance cameras in public spaces of any kind remains controversial, whether for privacy or other concerns.

I do share the concern that stepped-up policing and surveillance might prevent law-abiding visitors from going to the Gorge, given our current state of fear of law enforcement in this country and an openly racist, vindictive regime in power in Washington. As with all law enforcement, it’s a trade-off, but one that I think ought to be considered in the Gorge, and soon.

Despite the current political environment, I remain optimistic that we’ll figure this out, eventually. The Gorge means too much to us and we have a long tradition in Oregon of finding our own creative path to solutions. In the meantime, carry what you can’t afford to lose with you when you’re in the Gorge… and you might also consider investing in a Trunk Monkey until better solutions to the theft problem are found. 😊

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Tom Kloster • February 2025

2025 Campaign Calendar..!

December 20, 2024 / Tom Kloster / 5 Comments

2025 Campaign Calendar Cover

December brings my annual year in review as told through the images I’ve chosen for the new Mount Hood National Park Campaign calendar. It’s a collection of images from around WyEast country that captures my explorations over the past year and its published in a high-quality, oversized format by the good folks at Zazzle. You can order one here:

2025 Mount Hood National Park Campaign Calendar

As always, all proceeds go to Trailkeepers of Oregon (TKO) and you can have these calendars delivered anywhere. You may notice a Red Rock Country calendar of desert southwest images from a recent trip through the Colorado Plateau — proceeds from the is calendar to to TKO, as well! Meanwhile, here’s a deeper dive into the thirteen images I selected for this year’s calendar.

Stories behind the photos…

The cover image is also the most recent in the calendar. It’s an alpenglow view of Mount Hood’s west face taken from Lolo Pass road in early November. This is a classic spot for photography after the first few fall snowstorms, so I’m rarely alone there – a notably, I ran into Peter Marbach, one of our amazing WyEast Country professional photographers on this visit! This view came a few minutes before sunset on a crystal-clear fall evening:

Last light after an early snowfall on the mountain is the cover image of the 2025 campaign calendar

The backstory to this photo is that I had planned to shoot from a favorite spot on the east shoulder of Lolo Pass that evening. I even had my camera set up, ready to go, when a huge fog bank rolled up the West Fork Hood River valley and parked over me at Lolo Pass. It happened in less than a minute, as the photo sequence below shows:

Lolo Pass fog rolling in… setting up my tripod seems to have this effect on the weather!

It turns that topographic conditions are prime at Lolo Pass for fog events like this (sometimes becoming freezing fog). Most of these are triggered when colder, drier continental air from east of the Cascades collides with moist, marine air from west of the mountains to form very localized fog banks parked on top of the pass, with otherwise clear weather to the east and west.

Sure enough, when I packed up and headed to a viewpoint just west of the pass, the mountain was in full view – along with the fog bank draped over Lolo Pass (below). This is where I captured the cover photo for the new calendar that day and had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Marbach! I’m still kicking myself for not getting a selfie – I’m a big fan of his amazing work.

Looking back at the Lolo Pass fog bank from the west side of the mountain

In fall and early spring, strong temperature inversions can also fill the mountain valleys on both sides of Lolo Pass with dense fog. As the sun drops down toward sunset, the valley inversion fog often surges over the pass due to its remarkably low elevation of just 3,415 feet – at least a thousand feet lower than most of the Cascade passes in Oregon.

Continuing with the fog theme, inversion valley fog is just how this photo (below) I chose for January image in the new calendar came about. This scene was captured on the east side of Mount Hood, along the lower slopes of Lookout Mountain, with the East Fork Hood River canyon filled nearly to the brim with a dense, thousand-foot thick layer of fog. The view is framed with long-needled Ponderosa Pine boughs, the signature conifer species on the east slope of the Cascades.

More fog for the January calendar image – this time in the East Fork Hood River valley

Here’s a wider view from the same area (below) showing how the fog filled the valley like a bathtub that day, thanks to a layer of cold, moist air trapped by a stable high-pressure system that was bringing all that sunshine and relatively mild temperatures directly above. On winter days like this, it’s common for temperatures in the fog zone to be hovering near freezing while temperatures above the inversion rise well into the upper 40s or even low 50s.

East Fork Hood River inversion fog and Mount Hood

Inversion fog is common on the east end of the Columbia River Gorge and is tributary valleys in winter, often with freezing temperatures that make for spectacular frost displays (and slick roads) when the inversions persist. The forests here are completely adapted to this effect, including the annual pruning that a heavy ice accumulation from persistent fog can bring.

In this view (below), the winter advantage of Western Larch also stands out. While a few of the Larch still have their golden needles, most (like the one in the center) have already dropped their foliage for the winter, making them less susceptible to heavy winter winds and accumulations of snow and ice. Like Ponderosa Pine, Larch are also fire-resistant – making them perfectly adapted to this “fire forest” mountain ecosystem.

Fog swirling through an east side forest of Larch, true firs, Douglas fir and Ponderosa pine

The fog was sloshing around the East Fork valley that day as I watched and captured the changing scenes. While the overall inversion layer is generally flat, there are waves in the upper surface of the fog what wash “ashore” along the valley walls as the inversion air pressure gradient rolls across the surface of the fog layer. It’s mesmerizing to watch this effect from just above “shore level” as the waves surge below.

This final view was taken from the same spot as the above calendar image, and it shows an approaching wave of fog that would soon overtop the spot where I had set up my camera for these images. Once it engulfed me, the air temperature nearly 20 degrees in just a few minutes!

The mountain a few minutes before the ocean of fog inundated this spot!

Winter can be long and grey on the west side of the mountains, but if you know Oregon’s weather patterns you can often spot conditions when the east side of the mountains will be bright and sunny, even as rain falls on the west side. A favorite retreat for me on these days is the lower Deschutes River Canyon, less than two hours from Portland.

Despite the still-cool temperatures, I prefer to visit the Deschutes River in late winter, when few people are there, and the canyon slopes are green with emerging spring growth and the Alders turn yellow, then rusty-red with catkins. For the February image in the new campaign calendar, I chose this scene (below) near Rattlesnake Canyon that features a picturesque White Alder just coming into its late winter bloom.

White Alder providing winter color along the Deschutes River for the February calendar image

Here’s another winter scene along the Deschutes with a mature grove of White Alder (below) growing along the riverbank. White Alder are not widespread in Oregon, and mostly limited to the Willamette Valley, eastern Columbia River Gorge (including the lower Deschutes Canyon) and the Siskiyous in Southern Oregon, Their range overlaps the Red Alder, its close cousin, that grows along the Pacific coast and extends as far inland as the Willamette Valley, where the two species meet.

White Alder (left) in winter along the Deschutes

Seen up close, both the male and female catkins of White Alder come into view. In this February photo (below), the male catkins are the long, pendulous blossoms and the green female catkins are still in bud form, just beginning to emerge. The “cones” of last year’s female catkins can still be seen, too. They are the dark ovals that resemble tiny pine cones when they open and dry to a dark brown color in fall. Because White Alder contains both male and female flowers on the same tree, they rely only on wind to pollinate, and the desert country east of Mount Hood provides plenty fo that!

White Alder catkins emerging in February

This view of a typical section of the Lower Deschutes canyon (below) shows just how important the White Alder groves that line the shore are to the ecosystem. They are the only sizable trees in this desert landscape, and they provide essential wildlife habitat along the river. Both Red and White Alder are also nitrogen-fixing trees, enriching the soil for other plants wherever they grow.

White Alder groves line the lower Deschutes River Canyon in winter

Another surprise on this winter trip to the Lower Deschutes were the many flowing tributary waterfalls that are dry for much of the year. This unnamed, two-tier waterfall near Trestle Bend is dropping into a grove of White Alder (below).

Season waterfall dropping into the Deschutes canyon in winter

While I’ve known for some time that Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep live in the Lower Deschutes canyon, I had not seen them until this trip last February, when I spotted two herds high above the river, just upstream from Rattlesnake Canyon. Both were bachelor herds working their way downstream, along the upper slopes of the canyon (below).

Bighorn Sheep in the lower Deschutes River canyon

Bighorn Sheep are a welcome sight in the Deschutes River canyon, not just because they’re beautiful to see and watch, but because they’re also an indicator of ecosystem health. Bighorns are highly sensitive to human activity, so their presence here reflects the continuing efforts by the Bureau of Land Management and Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to expand habitat protection for these animals in Oregon’s desert country.

Bighorn Sheep in the lower Deschutes River canyon

This trip was my second to the Lower Deschutes last winter, and I did have a practical mission for returning. On the first trip I had come frighteningly close to dropping a wheel over the edge of a paved section of the river access road, where a landslide has taken a big bite out of it. When I pulled over to take a look, I was spooked by the realization that going off the road here would have sent me 200 feet down the landslide scar, and directly into the river!

So, one week later I came armed with a can of white paint to (at least temporarily) mark off a shy distance for drivers passing north along the road. Hopefully, the land managers didn’t mind…

Scary landslide damage to the Deschutes River Road!

This aerial view of the landslide scar from Google Earth (the image below is from 2022) shows just how sketchy the situation is, and that there are really two slides at work, here. The larger slide on the right is the one picture above, where the roadway has been seriously compromised.

Aerial view of the Deschutes River Road landslides in 2022 (Google Earth)

For the March calendar image, I moved to the Columbia River Gorge and Tanner Creek. It’s a place that I describe as the “Gorge on the half-shell”, as this spectacular 2-mile loop trail along to Wahclella Falls has all of the elements of a classic Gorge hike: towering basalt cliffs, a rushing stream with thundering waterfalls, wispy, impossibly tall tributary waterfalls, old-growth Douglas Fir and Western Redcedar, fern-covered talus slopes and lush green moss on seemingly every surface. Throw in four unique footbridges (one where you can reach out and touch a waterfall) and it’s a perfect introduction to the Gorge.

In past years, I have included a favorite scene captured from a viewpoint high above the falls, showing a couple of the tributary waterfalls dropping into the deep gorge that Tanner Creek has carved. I captured the scene once again this year (below), but wanted to try something different for 2025.

Wahclella Falls in the Columbia River Gorge

This year I opted for the view from in front of the falls (below), taken from the long footbridge that can spotted in the previous photo. From this streamside perspective, a young Western Redcedar growing directly in front of the falls, and will soon block the view. So, for this year I embraced the photo-bombing tree and framed it to be directly silhouetted by the falls while it’s still short enough not to completely block the view.

Wahclella Falls and the upstart Western Redcedar tree are featured as the March calendar image

How long before the tree eclipses the view from the footbridge? Here’s a comparative view of this young upstart, and you can see that it will clearly block the falls from this vantage point in the next decade or so… if it survives! That’s an open question, as this little tree is growing quite close to Tanner Creek, and there’s a reason the largest trees near the falls are on higher ground. Tanner Creek is big and rowdy in winter, and regularly scours the streambanks along its course in high water, easily carrying away whole trees in its wake. The giant logjam in the earlier, wide view of the falls is testament to the stream’s power.

The upstart cedar at Wahclella Falls

[click here for a much larger version]

For geoscience types (that would be me), the still-fresh scar from the 1973 landslide at Tanner Creek is hard to take your eyes off when hiking this trail, but in recent years there have been a series of much smaller basalt wall collapses right next to Wahclella Falls that are fascinating to track. Sometime in the past year, another 15×20 foot slab immediately west of the falls collapsed into the splash pool after being undercut by erosion from the pounding water. The photo pair below shows the new scar.

Recent wall collapse along the Wahclella Falls splash pool

This latest evidence of the ongoing erosion along Tanner Creek is a more typical example of the incremental, nearly constant deepening of the canyon that occurs through the combination of gravity and annual freeze-thaw cycles that push cracks in the basalt walls open and gradually the rock apart.

This weaking of the rock is accelerated by the erosive action of Tanner Creek in undercutting the canyon walls, especially where the heavy basalt layers rests on the must softer Eagle Creek Formation, made up of ancient volcanic debris flows that are easily eroded by the stream. The trailside cave just below Wahclella Falls (where the new the new logjam has accumulated) is a great example of stream erosion cutting away this softer layer beneath several hundred feet of vertical basalt cliff, above. This was mostly likely what triggered the massive 1973 collapse, as well.

For the April image in the new calendar, I chose a scene that put April-blooming Balsamroot front and center. This view from the Columbia Hills State Historical Park (below) is looking west toward Mount Hood on a cool, blustery spring day.

Mount Hood and the flood-scoured lower slopes of the Columbia Gorge are featured in the April calendar image

Staying with a geology theme, this viewpoint is notable for how rocky this scene below is. It was taken at a point just below the high-water mark of the series of ice age floods that shaped much of what we know as the Gorge today. The floodwaters scoured away all but the most resistant basalt, leaving this rugged terrain we know today behind.

You can easily spot the high-water mark of the ice age floods in this part of the Gorge. Just a hundred feet uphill from the viewpoint where the previous photo was taken, the terrain suddenly softens into the rolling slopes that make up the Columbia Hills (below). There’s plenty of jagged basalt here, too, but it’s mostly buried under millennia of soil accumulation that survived the floods thanks to being mainly above the flood levels.

Gentle terrain above the ice age flood high-water level in the Columbia Hills

The surviving soil in these upper slopes of the Gorge translate into enormous wildflower meadows that draw people from around the world. Yellow Balsamroot steals the flower show in the east Gorge in spring, but in places with the Columbia Hills, they are just part of a wildflower spectacle, with Phlox (below), lupine and dozens of other wildflowers filling the gaps between the showy Balsamroot.

Spring wildflower gardens in the Columbia Hills

Each time I visit places the east Gorge in spring, I make it a goal to spot a few of these co-stars in the flower show that I might not have noticed before. To my surprise, my visit last spring included Ballhead Waterleaf, a lush plant that grows throughout the west, but is typically found in moist spots. Yet, this colony (below) had found a shady slope beneath a pair of Bigleaf Maple trees with just enough groundwater to help them thrive in this desert environment.

This Ballhead Waterleaf found a shaded niche in the Columbia Hills

Another striking wildflower was new to me on that trip, a lovely plant called Whitestem Frasera (below). It was just coming into bloom and still in bud when I was there, but in a couple weeks would have clusters of blue flowers rising above the beautiful foliage. This is one of many species that is typically found well east of the Cascades, but makes its way well into the Columbia River Gorge where conditions are right.

Whitestem Fraseria still in bud in the Columbia Hills

Still more surprising on that trip were several Cushion Fleabane (below) colonizing the old access road that forms the first mile or so of the Crawford Oaks trail in the Columbia Hills. These little plants thrive in fine gravels, and the old roadbed provides that for them, now that traffic is mostly limited to hiking boots.

Tiny Cushion Fleabane in the Columbia HIlls

I stayed on the east side of the mountains for the May calendar image, with a view of White River Falls (below), where one of Mount Hood’s many glacial streams carves a deep canyon through sagebrush country and make a spectacular leap over a wide basalt cliff on the way to its confluence with the Deschutes River, just downstream. The falls and its lower canyon are protected as part of White River Falls State Park.

White River Falls during spring runoff in the May calendar image

This spectacular view of the main falls is best in spring, when runoff is high. The upper viewpoint is easily accessible, too – just a few hundred feet from the trailhead, with some of the path paved. But the deep gorge below the main falls hides still more waterfalls that make it well worth the steep hike into the canyon, despite the choppy descent along a long set of deteriorating stairs!

The stairway to White River heaven…

The lower tier of the main falls is unofficially called Celestial Falls (below) and forms a perfect punchbowl between walls of basalt. When winter temperatures drop below freezing, this natural bowl can become a mass of ice built up from the waterfall spray.

Celestial Falls on the White River, just below the main White River falls

Continue a bit further downstream on an increasingly unofficial trail, past the ruins of the early 1900s hydroelectric plant that once operated here, and the White River makes a third, smaller plunge into another, larger punchbowl at the lower falls (below). This might be my favorite spot in the canyon, as the lower falls and its deep pool are framed with wildflowers in spring, sprinkled among the boulders on the slopes that surround the river.

Lower White River Falls

There is a lot to see at White River Falls, and because it’s a regular stop for me, my eye goes to new details on each visit. When I stopped last spring and captured the calendar image shown previously, I was surprised to notice that beavers had taken up residence in the long, slow pool near the old powerhouse, between Celestial Falls and the lower falls. They had also recently made quick work of several trunks of a White Alder clump growing along the beach (below). If you look closely at the image from last April, you can see four fresh cuts, along with at least five previously cut trunks. Just one trunk remained, then, and even this sole survivor had a fresh scar where the beavers were working to finish the job on this grove!

Busy beavers at White River Falls State Park

In the more recent image from last month – just seven months later — you can see the Alder tree is fighting back with a vengeance. Not only did that lonely last trunk survive, dozens of new shoots exploded from the stumps over the summer to replace what the beavers had hauled away. It’s a great example of the continuous cycle between beavers and streamside trees.

When I visited last month, I was also reminded of man’s impact on the falls. In low water, which extends from mid-summer into mid-winter, much of the face of White River Falls goes dry. Why? The answer is in the distance, just beyond the falls, where a long-derelict diversion dam (shown below) was built more than a century ago to direct water to the old hydroelectric penstock pipes.

Dried-up White River Falls in the low water season when the main river flow is diverted

You can get a close-up look at the ruins of the old waterworks by following a path that heads upstream from the main falls overlook. Here, the diversion dam and abandoned canals that were once the headworks (below) to an elaborate pipe system are still diverting the river, but only to a side channel that spills around the main falls, as the pipe system was largely removed decades ago.

Derelict White River Falls diversion works depriving White River Falls its full spectacle

My hope is that Oregon State Parks officials will someday breach the old dam and restore the falls to its original channel year-round, instead of waiting for the White River to do the job (and it will, eventually).

For June, I chose another east-side image for the calendar. This view of Eightmile Falls (below) is where the main stream flowing from Columbia Hills State Historic Park drops over a basalt cliff as it enters the ice age flood-scoured lower reaches of the Columbia Gorge. In spring, this overlook is especially beautiful, lined with blooming Balsamroot and the creek is running strong with early season runoff.

June in the new calendar features Eightmile Falls in the Columbia Hills

Eightmile Falls is located along the Crawford Oaks trail, a relatively new access point to the park that follows a portion of the historic military road that once passed through this area. Along the way, there are views of Mount Hood and the Columbia River framed by old stone walls (below) from the early days of white settlement here in the late 1800s.

Stone walls in the Columbia Hills mark early white settlements in the area

One surprise along this section of the old military road is a grove of heritage apple trees that have somehow survived here for a century of more, in the middle of this harsh desert environment. In spring, they are covered with blossoms (below) that reveal them to be part of the human story here.

Heritage apple trees from white settlements still survive at Crawford Oaks

Another surprise along the old road are several groups of Bigleaf Maple, a species that thrives in Cascade rainforests. These unlikely trees manage to carve out a niche in this desert environment where they typically grows along basalt walls that provide both weather protection and provide groundwater seeps to help them survive hot summers.

Bigleaf Maple blossoms in the Columbia Hills

In spring, these out-of-place maples also put on an impressive flower display (above) that is easier to appreciate here, where the trees often grow just 15-20 feet high. Their foliage is at eye level, where you can see the blossoms close-up, compared to rainforest cousins where the blooms are often 70 or 80 feet above the forest floor.

For the July calendar image, I moved up into the mountains with this view (below) of the historic Cooper Spur Shelter, located along the Timberline Trail on the northeast shoulder of Mount Hood. This is among of the most iconic spots on the mountain, and it didn’t disappoint this year, with drifts of blooming yellow Buckwheat and purple Lupine framing the 1930s, Civilian Conservation Corps structure.

Cooper Spur Shelter with alpine wildflowers are featured in the July calendar image

As tough as it has been to witness the accelerating effects of global warming on Mount Hood’s glaciers in past years, the early summer view of the Eliot Glacier remains one of the most impressive sights in WyEast Country. In this view from farther up the Cooper Spur trail (below) a few weeks later, a group of hikers is silhouetted against the mountain, giving scale to the enormity of the glacier as it tumbles down the mountain.

Hikers framed against the Eliot Glacier in Summer

Many of the trails in the Cooper Spur area are as unofficial as they are historic, dating back to the earliest recreation visits to the mountain in the late 1800s and early 1900s, when the Cloud Cap Inn was in its heyday. Today, the continue to be as heavily traveled as the formal trail system. This is made possible by a largely unseen corps of unofficial trail tenders that have helped tend to these routes for decades, as well as the official Timberline and Cooper Spur routes. I know, because I’ve adopted a few of these trails, and I always see the handiwork of others when I’m working there.

Last July, my unofficial trail work focused on retiring a persistent shortcut just below the crest of the South Eliot Moraine. It’s caveman work, as you can see in the schematic below – simply covering the shortcut with rocks large enough to discourage people from taking the shortcut. It’s a never-ending task, as new routes are formed instantly in this open, loose alpine terrain when just one group hikers decides to leave the established trail and make their own way.

Trail tending along the South Eliot moraine

In the era of cell phones and GPS, these shortcuts are becoming more numerous and persistent. Why? Because the errant digital tracks from lost hikers following dead-ends or short cuts are blindly added to the big data commercial websites that cater to hikers. It’s among the many reasons to avoid commercial apps and social media for hiking guidance, especially when we have TKO’s free Oregon Hikers Field Guide for trails in Oregon and Southwest Washington, a non-profit resource written by hikers, for hikers.

The Cooper Spur Shelter, itself, was also in need of some volunteer tending this year, as the stovepipe in the south corner of the structure has rusted through and that seems to have led to a collapse of the stone wall surrounding it (below).

Recent collapse of the south shoulder of the Cooper Spur shelter

While it’s possible the U.S. Forest Service will repair this, I’m going to guess that it will fall to volunteers that I’ve seen working on the structure in the past. I’ve come across them many times over the years, as early as this view (below) taken 22 years ago, when a group of volunteers was repairing that same south corner of the building. Like most of the trails around Cooper Spur, the shelter also represents an ongoing volunteer effort to ensure it survives.

Volunteers repairing the south wall of the shelter more than 20 years ago

For the August image in the new calendar, I chose the view from Inspiration Point (below), a rocky spot along the Cloud Cap Road that provides a sweeping view of the Eliot Branch canyon and Mount Hood’s steep northeast side. This has been a popular tourist stop since visitors begin arriving at the Cooper Spur Inn by horse and buggy in the 1890s.

The August calendar image features this classic view of Mount Hood from Inspiration Point

Inspiration Point still offers one of the finest views of both the Coe and Eliot glaciers, the two largest on the mountain. The Coe is the lesser known of the two due to its remote location on the rugged north face of the mountain, and this viewpoint is one of the few places with a close-up look accessible by road.

Coe Glacier from Inspiration Point

The steep, unofficial trail to Inspiration Point has been on my list of adopted trails for nearly 20 years, and despite its short length, keeping this little path intact has been a challenge – especially in the years since the 2011 Dollar Lake Fire swept through and left many standing snags that are still periodically falling across the trail.

If you’re not an avid hiker and looking for a short side trip on your way to Cloud Cap, watch for the following signpost at an obvious switchback in the road at about the 3 mile mark (below). From the sign, the trail drops roughly 300 feet to the rocky overlook of Inspiration Point.

Inspiration Point trail marker

What does the “1” stand for in this unofficial trail marker? It dates back to a brochure and map once published by the Forest Service that described the history of the Cloud Cap area by numbered waypoints along the road. This signpost and an old, mounted wagon wheel further up the road are all that remains from that effort to share the local history. I do plan to feature the brochure in a future blog article, along with mileage waypoints to guide visitors, in lieu of the old markers that were once here.

Inspiration Point trail marker… a reminder of an interpretive story that was once told here

For the best view from Inspiration Point, the short trail is a must, but there was a time when you could take in the view from road as you motored your Model T up to Cloud Cap Inn. In fact, an old guardrail that I think might be the original shown in a 1920s postcard view (below) is still there – albeit with a few trees now partly blocking the view.

The view from Inspiration Point – then and now

For the September calendar image, I stayed on the mountain and chose an early fall scene at WyEast Basin (below). This photo was taken on a hike in October of this year along the Timberline Trail, from WyEast Basin to Elk Cove, when the huckleberry foliage had turned a brilliant crimson and the alpine meadows to shades of yellow and gold.

WyEast Basin on Mount Hood’s north side is the September image

This photo (below) from the descent into Elk Cove is also from that day, showing the light dusting of early snow that had fallen on the summit the day before.

The Timberline Trail approach to Elk Cove lights up with color in autumn

I considered using this view of the upper meadows at Elk Cove (below) from that October trip for the calendar, before realizing just how many times I’ve featured Elk Cove over the years! Lovely as it is, this year I went for a change of scenery with the WyEast Basin scene.

Elk Cove in autumn with an early dusting of snow on the mountain

One pleasant surprise at Elk Meadows this year was a new trail sign located at the Timberline Trail junction with the Elk Cove Trail. The old sign had pretty much disintegrated in recent years, causing a fair amount of confusion for hikers, based on the number of times I helped people find their way at that junction.

One benefit of coming to Elk Cove every year is the opportunity to track changes there over time. This includes trail signs, and in a place where the winter snowpack regularly reaches 10 feet or more in winter, it’s no wonder that these signs take a beating. As you can see from the photo sequence below, the two small signs pointing to “campsites” get the award for most durable. They were already quite weathered in 2010 when the previous “new” trail sign was installed. By 2023, the “new” main sign from 2010 was falling apart. This year, both the main trail sign and the “no camping in meadows” sign were completely replaced, while the two “campsites” signs are still doing their job.

Elk Cove trail signs over the years

On the hike back from Elk Cove, I stopped to collect some trail condition photos at WyEast Basin, where the growing stream of hikers has begun to take its toll on the meadow. Some of this is the result of hikers simply stepping off the trail when passing one-another on a busy section of the Timberline Trail, but the widening tread is mostly the result of the original trail becoming trenched from heavy use, then becoming a muddy ditch when snowmelt fills it early in the hiking season. Hikers then opt to walk on either side to keep their boots dry, gradually destroying the meadow vegetation in the process.

This schematic (below) shows the original trail at the center (now a trench) as a white dashed line and shoulder paths in red dashed lines, where hikers have already destroyed an alarming amount of meadow vegetation.

Growing damage from trail overuse at WyEast Basin

Over time, this parallel use paths on both sides of the trenched trail will turn into a muddy slog, too, resulting in an ever-widening trail across a beautiful meadow. I’m hoping to find a way for TKO volunteers to restore this trail with a different design that anticipates the muddy season, perhaps even something as bold as a turnpike, or raised section of trail between parallel logs that is designed to keep the trail tread dry by elevating it above the surrounding ground. Below is a recent example from McIver State Park.

Trailkeepers of Oregon (TKO) volunteers building a turnpike on soggy ground at McIver State Park (photo: TKO)

[click here for a larger version]

The second photo in the above example shows a drainage features, one of the potential benefits of a turnpike at WyEast Basin, as the Timberline Trail crosses at least three small streams that meander through the meadow. However, turnpikes are typically built from found materials near the trail (logs, rocks and soil), which could prove to be challenging in an alpine, wilderness environment.

For the October image in the new calendar, I went back to Wahcella Falls. It’s not the first time a waterfall has appeared twice in a single calendar, but it was the combination of fall colors and a person in the photo – a rarity for me – that made the case. Look closely (below) and you’ll see a hiker in front of the falls, taking in the magnificent view.

Wahclella Falls (and a hiker) with fall colors is featured as the October image in the calendar

Earlier in this article, I included a photo of Wahclella Falls from an off-trail viewpoint taken in early spring. By late October each year, the same view lights up with gold and yellow fall colors (below) that are becoming even more prevalent in the aftermath of the 2017 Eagle Creek Fire that swept through this canyon. That’s thanks to the rapid recovery of broadleaf trees like Bigleaf and Vine maple that are taking advantage of the open forest conditions created by the fire, and bouncing back from roots and stumps that survived the burn.

Fall colors at Wahclella Falls have become more dramatic since the 2017 fire

Bigleaf Maple are the real stars in this comeback story, with most growing from the surviving stump of a parent tree killed by the fire. The new access to sunlight and explosive growth also makes for super-sized foliage, with individual leaves measuring nearly a foot across (below) underscoring the common name for these essential trees.

Biglieaf maple leaves are growing to gigantic proportions in the post-fire recovery

When I hike this trail, I see the handiwork of Trailkeepers of Oregon (TKO) crews everywhere, as TKOs volunteers have done much to rescue the trail in the aftermath of the 2017 fire. This includes a streamside section where a huge, post-fire logjam of killed trees accumulated just below Wahclella Falls, and piled so high they spilled onto the trail, itself. TKO and Pacific Crest Trail Association volunteers used a combination of saws and ropes to clear the way back in 2021, and today the logjam is still there to remind us of the power of this stream.

TKO crews clearing the logjam from the Wahclalla Falls trail in 2021

TKO volunteers also worked with the Forest Service to build a rustic set of stairs where the trail had collapsed near the falls, leaving a sketchy scramble through this gap in the rocks for hikers to navigate. The rock steps not only make the trail more accessible to everyday hikers, the add another interesting element and a bit of whimsey for young hikers (below) visiting this family-friendly trail for the first time.

Rustic steps built by TKO volunteers at Wahclella Falls area favorite with young hikers

For the November calendar image, I returned to the east side of the mountain and chose a scene captured along the Lookout Mountain Road in late fall. This is the least-visited, less familiar side of the mountain to Portlanders, with a broad, sweeping profile that looks more like other Cascade volcanoes, and contrasts with the familiar, pyramid-shaped summit the mountain presents to the millions who live west of the mountain.

Yellow and gold Larch framing Mount Hood are featured as the November image in the calendar

When the conditions are right, the Western Larch here have turned to their yellow and gold autumn colors and the first temperature inversions have arrived, filling the East Fork Hood River valley with fog. The effect can be quite dramatic. On this day the fog layer was growing especially fast, and surged over me in just the view minutes (below) I had to set up my camera!

Fast moving fog at Lookout Mountain!

Having been fogged out on that chilly day, I followed another November ritual in the mountains and collected some greens for holiday decorating. Normally, I look for Noble Fir boughs, but on this day, I gathered some beautiful, blue-tinted Engelmann Spruce greens. You can easily distinguish spruce from other conifers by their sharp needles, making them a bit prickly to work with as holiday greens. Nonetheless, they made for some lovely Christmas arrangements at home!

Engelmann Spruce holiday greens..? Prickly!

Is it legal to collect holiday greens within Mount Hood National Forest? Absolutely, but check their website to see if a permit is required. For 2024, permits are waived, and you may collect up to 25 pounds (that’s a lot of boughs!) in a season. The main restriction is Whitebark Pine, which are now a protected species and may not be collected or cut in any way. These trees only grow at and above timberline, but if you’re unsure of how to identify them, just avoid cutting any pine boughs and stick with fir trees. Leave no trace also applies, so collect boughs as if you were pruning trees in your garden, with cuts made as discreetly as possible.

For December, I chose a fairly unconventional image for the new calendar. Continuing with the fog theme, I selected this photo from the Bennett Pass area, where dueling valley fog banks in both the White River and East Fork Hood River valleys were colliding at the pass. The effect in the ancient Noble Fir forests just above Bennett Pass was mesmerizing, with patching of blue sky opening and closing overhead as waves of fog rolled through the big trees.

Ancient Noble Fir forest rising into the fog near Bennett Pass are featured as the December image in the new calendar

Fog bank filling the East Fork Hood River Valley as viewed from above Bennett Pass

How old are these trees? Some are at least 400 years old. We know this because the area saw heavy logging in the 1970s and 1980s, and many of the giant stumps left from that unfortunate era still remain to tell the story through their tree rings. Fortunately, not all of the big trees were cut, and some truly magnificent old-growth Noble Fir stands remain today.

Noble Fir giants in the fog near Bennett Pass

Noble Fir giants and Mountain Hemlock seedlings in the fog near Bennett Pass

On a more practical note, I was encouraged on that trip to see the Forest Service continuing to gradually improve visitor facilities on the mountain, including a new toilet at the popular winter trailhead at Bennett Pass. While pit toilets might not be a joy for anyone to use, they are essential at busy trailheads, especially for families with young kids. Modern toilets like the new facility at Bennett Pass are also accessible for visitors with mobility devices, removing a very real barrier to our public lands.

New toilets at Bennett Pass – with a view!

Finally, the back cover of the new campaign calendar features some of the wildflower highlights captured in WyEast Country over the past year (below). Some might be familiar, but I do have one confession to make: the Prickley Pear cactus in the center square wasn’t photographed anywhere near Mount Hood. Instead, it’s over in the John Day country, where I photographed this particular colony near the Painted Hills last spring.

Wildflower mashup on the back of the 2025 calendar

Here’s a closer look at one of the cactus blossoms from that trip (below), showing the unlikely contrast of impossibly delicate flowers emerging from a maze of thorns that make these tough plants so fascinating:

Brittle Prickley Pear near the Painted Hills

Why include this, then? Because I am admittedly obsessed with our native cacti, and determined to finally photograph them where they grow here in WyEast Country. I have two promising leads on that front that I’ll be following up on this spring. Both are near The Dalles and apparently hidden in plain sight, but I suspect I will have some searching to do!

Where the Prickley Pear grows..?

I’ve spent a lot of time over the years hunting for cactus in Oregon. As spectacular and flamboyant as these flowers are when in bloom, the plants are surprisingly well-camouflaged and hard to find when they’re not… unless you step on one! So, more to come in this story.

…and to spare you from scrolling back to the top, here’s the link if you’d like to order the 2025 campaign calendar featuring these new photos:

2025 Mount Hood National Park Campaign Calendar

… and all proceeds from calendar sales go to Trailkeepers of Oregon (TKO), and they can be delivered anywhere

Looking ahead to 2025

Thanks for reading this far! Mea culpa: I began 2024 with high hopes of a lot of WyEast Blog articles, but my day job and real-life demands got the better of me this year, once again! Therefore, I’m recycling that goal for 2025, and I’ve got some fun topics that I’m eager to dive into.

These include some new digging I’ve done on a massive landslide that completely rerouted one of Mount Hood’s major rivers, plus some new research on what many call “Indian pits” or “vision quest pits” – those mysterious pits found in talus slopes all through the Gorge and in spots around Mount Hood. I’ve also got a history piece on a surprising road race with a WyEast connection, and much more beyond these…time permitting!

The old man and the mountain..

As always, thanks for patiently checking back when my posts become infrequent, putting up with the typos and grammatical errors, and — more importantly — thank you for being a friend of our Mountain and Gorge. I hope to see you on the trail sometime in 2025!

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Tom Kloster | December 2024

Return of the Mountain Goat… on Mount Hood?

September 28, 2024 / Tom Kloster / 9 Comments

Author’s note: I wrote a version of this article for the Mazama newsletter a few weeks ago, so I’m sharing an expanded version here, as this is a sequel to a WyEast Blog post from 2011.

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Since posting an article more than a decade ago (“Return of the Mountain Goat”) proposing reintroduction of Rocky Mountain Goats on Mount Hood, I’ve received a steady stream of updates from area hikers with recent goat sightings on Mount Hood and in the Columbia River Gorge. Are they making a spontaneous comeback?

Possibly. But I couldn’t have predicted the many related events that have unfolded since I wrote that first piece back in 2011, and they don’t necessarily help the case for bringing mountain goats back to Mount Hood – nor do they rule the idea out. It’s just much less clear, now.

The first big event was the Dollar Lake Fire on Mount Hood that roared through just a few months after I posted the article. While there had been fairly recent fires on the east slopes of the mountain (the Bluegrass Fire and Gnarl Fire), they had mostly burned below timberline and were also partly within the ecological zone known as “fire forests”. These are forests with fire-dependent species like Ponderosa Pine and Western Larch have evolved with fire as a regular occurrence on the dry east slopes of the mountain.

Dollar Lake Fire burning across Mount Hood’s north side in September 2011

The Dollar Lake Fire on the north side was different, largely burning subalpine Noble Fir and Mountain Hemlock forests, species that have not evolved to withstand fire. The result was a complete canopy loss along most of the north slope of the mountain. I’ve since been documenting the forest recovery in a series of WyEast blog articles, and it’s a story of remarkable resilience in an ecosystem where fires are both rare and devastating.

However, if you were a mountain goat living on Mount Hood when that fire roared through in the late summer of 2011, you would likely have survived. Though the Dollar Lake Fire touched timberline in places like Elk Cove and Cairn Basin, most of the timberline and alpine habitat was untouched. This would have allowed goats living in the rocky areas at and above the tree line to escape the smoke and flames during the event.

The Dollar Lake Fire transformed more than 6,000 acres of subalpine terrain from dense forests to open huckleberry and beargrass fields. This scene is from 99 Ridge, above Elk Cove

The vast huckleberry and beargrass fields that now grow among bleached tree skeletons within the burn zone are prime habitat for wildlife, including elk, deer and bear. What is unknown is whether the new habitat would support mountain goats where it exposed rocky terrain that had been engulfed in forest cover over the past century – places like The Pinnacle or 99 Ridge (the rocky ridge that forms the west wall of Elk Cove, shown above).

We do know that when white migrants began streaming into the Oregon country in the mid-1800s, the Cascade forests looked much different than they do today, after a century of wildfire suppression. A series of survey photos captured from dozens of Forest Service lookouts in the early 1930s provide a remarkable record of just how open much of the high country surrounding Mount Hood was in places like Zigzag Mountain, Mirror Lake and today’s Salmon-Huckleberry Wilderness.

The northern slopes of Devils Peaks had been cleared by repeated fires over centuries in this 1933 lookout panorama. In the distance, the entirety of Zigzag Mountain was also an open expanse of huckleberry and beargrass fields. Mount Hood and the burned slopes near Mirror Lake are on the right

[Click here for a larger version]

These openings were created by repeated fires, some set by indigenous people who had used fire for centuries to maintain ridgetop fields of beargrass and huckleberries for food and medicinal purposes. Thin mountaintop soils and summer lightning strikes during our summer droughts combined to make these forests vulnerable to wildfire, as well – and still do.

The view across the Salmon Huckleberry Wilderness in 1933 shows most of the peaks and ridgetops now covered by timber to still open from centuries of repeated fires

[Click here for a larger version]

This 1932 view from Hickman Butte, in the Bull Run watershed, shows signs of recent fires in the foreground and on Sugarloaf Mountain (in front of Mount Hood), as well as the open northern slopes of Zigzag Mountain in the distance (and to the right of Mount Hood) created by fires

[Click here for a larger version]

In September 2017 we watched the Eagle Creek Fire burn through the Oregon side of the Columbia River Gorge. This was the first major fire in the Gorge in more than a century, burning much of the high country in the Hatfield Wilderness, as well as the steep, drought-prone cliffs of the Gorge walls. Thanks to the east winds that define the Gorge, we know that especially devastating fires were once common here, as shown in both the 1930s lookout surveys and in vintage late-1800s photographs by Carleton Watkins, the Kiser Brothers (below) and Benjamin A. Gifford.

The cliffs above today’s Warrendale community and McCord Creek canyon in the Columbia Gorge were mostly open when this photo was taken by the Kiser Brothers in 1903. The Eagle Creek fire of 2017 has returned this area to a similar post-fire habitat

Their early images show the rugged cliff walls and high ridges of the Gorge as we see them today, covered with lush, recovering understory that we know has been a boon to deer and elk populations. By comparison to the Mount Hood fires, the 2017 burn area in the Gorge opened much more steep, rocky terrain that could be favorable to goats.

When the 2020 wildfires swept through Oregon, one of the impacted areas was Mount Jefferson, where mountain goats had been transplanted in 2010 in a collaborative effort by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) and Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs (described here in the original 2011 post). State wildlife managers expressed concern over the fate of the goats at the time, given the scale of the fires.

Regrowth already beginning a few weeks after the Lionhead Fire in 2020 (USFS)

Like the Mount Hood fires, the 2020 fires around Mount Jefferson opened rocky terrain that had become heavily forested over the past century through human-fire suppression, though at Mount Jefferson the amount of burned alpine terrain is much more extensive in places like Park Ridge. We may eventually discover that these fires allow reintroduced mountain goats in this area to expand their range to burned places like the upper Breitenbush basin and even the Bull of the Woods wilderness.

Another unexpected development since the 2011 blog article was a National Park Service (NPS) decision to relocate hundreds of mountain goats from Olympic National Park to the North Cascades, in Washington State. This came as a shock to many, given the perceived iconic connection of goats to the Olympics, but the controversial plan was well conceived and deeply grounded in science when it swung into motion in 2018.

Park Service staff transporting goats at Olympic National Park in 2018 (NPS)

Less known to the public at the time was that Rocky Mountain Goats were not native to the Olympics, and instead had been introduced by hunters in the 1920s. The combination of their environmental impact and (sometimes fatal) interactions with park visitors finally led to the NPS plan to eliminate the herds from the park.

By the summer of 2020, the Park Service had removed 381 goats from the park, with 325 of these relocated to the North Cascades. Most of the rest did not survive the capture or transport process, and 16 kids were transferred to area zoos. Some goats were left behind because of the difficulty of capture, and the Park Service scientists believe the number too small to regenerate a population.

The more jarring news is that most of the 324 relocated goats have not survived. The Park Service reported earlier this year that of the 151 goats among the transplanted population that were equipped with tracking collars, only four are now known to be alive. According to the scientists, the die-off is not simply a result of the relocation, but likely due to lack of suitable habitat – and especially climate change, which has resulted in summer drought and lack of forage for goats in the North Cascades.

Park Service staff transporting goats in 2018 (NPS)

We are in a period of rapid change for so many species, and our mountain goats can be added to that list. The Park Service estimates that 10,000 goats were living in the Washington Cascades as recently at 60 years ago, a number that has dropped to just 3,000 today.

What does this mean for bringing goats back to the northern Oregon Cascades? I remain optimistic that the return of wildfire to our high-country landscapes will create enough alpine and subalpine habitat for these animals to once again thrive here – that we will once again see Rocky Mountain goats where they had always been, on the snowy slopes of Mount Hood and along the rocky cliffs and ridgelines of the Columbia Gorge.

Indeed, in recent years, there have been periodic sightings of lone goats on Mount Hood on the east slopes of the mountain, near the Newton Clark glacier, and on the west side, high on Yocum Ridge. One recent sighting made local news this summer when a hiker on Yocum Ridge captured a video clip that has since circulated widely (below).

Lone mountain goat spotted on Yocum Ridge earlier this year (KOIN-TV)

These recently spotted goats on Mount Hood almost certainly migrated from the herd that was transplanted to Mount Jefferson in 2010. The long trip north to Mount Hood would have required at least 40 miles of travel along a relatively low, mostly forested section of the Cascade Crest, crossing Highway 26 and perhaps Highway 35 along the way. These obstacles underscore just how adaptative these animals can be when searching for new habitat.

Hikers have also spotted mountain goats on the north side of the Columbia River Gorge in recent years, mostly near Dog Mountain. While there are several goat herds to the north of the Gorge in Washington State, in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, these are the first recent sightings within the Gorge, suggesting the Washington herds are expanding their range southward.

Lone mountain goat near Carson in the Columbia Gorge (Oregon Hikers)

Herd of four mountain goats on Dog Mountain (Oregon Hikers)

Hikers have also spotted the ghost-like appearance of a mountain goat grazing in a heavily forested area near Dog Mountain (below). This sighting confirms their ability to travel between their preferred higher-elevation terrain in search of new habitat, as would be the case for Washington herds migrating south through forests to the reach open cliffs of the Gorge.

Ghost in the forest spotted near Dog Mountain in 2020 (Oregon Hikers)

Recent goat sightings like these in the Gorge and on Mount Hood are a thrill, and they have made for a lot of excitement in the hiking community. Do they represent a trend and perhaps the return of this species to its historic range in WyEast Country?

Only time will tell, but it’s a hopeful glimpse of what may come!

______________

Tom Kloster | WyEast Blog

Restoring Trails… and Hope? The Owl Point Register Story (Part 2 of 2)

August 26, 2024 / Tom Kloster / 7 Comments

The prolific 2021 Beargrass bloom at Owl Point

When I posted Part 1 of this article last month, the theme was about the redemptive, restorative power of time spent in the outdoors. At the time, I wasn’t alone in dreading the November elections, and the prospect of a renewed attack on public lands protections (and democracy, itself).

Flash forward one month, and the election landscape has radically changed in ways nobody could have predicted. I suddenly find myself with renewed hope and optimism that the next four years might bring more federal action on the climate crisis and protection of our public lands. Words like hope, optimism and bipartisanship have even found their way back into the national debate.

Our antiquated Electoral College system will ensure this election continues to be political nail-biter, yet it was through this lens of renewed optimism that I read through more comments in the Owl Point Register for this sequel. Part 2 of this article draws from the hundreds of messages left in the log between 2017 and 2023, and I chose a select few that further underscore the title of this two-part series.

Read on… with hope!

_______________

With the country suddenly talking about our shared future, again, what better way to begin Part 2 than with this wonderful message from a determined young family that tried – and succeeded – after three attempts to make it to Owl Point in the summer of 2017:

I so love seeing families on this trail. Here’s another family message from the same month in 2017, in this case with kids old enough to be Swifties:

In the Oregon Hikers Field Guide the Old Vista Ridge trail is described as “family friendly” because It’s just long enough to give kids a workout (and hopefully they will sleep all the way home) and sense of accomplishment at reaching their goal at Owl Point. Along the way, there are interesting things that appeal uniquely to kids: short side trails to secret viewpoints, mysterious talus caves, lots of boulders to climb, the “elephant trunk tree” near Blind Luck Meadow and a string of kid-friendly geocaches.

The Owl Point Register serves as one more feature for kids to explore, often writing the entry on behalf of their family, or at least giving their parents an assist. The summit box also has some local history and a guide to Mount Hood’s features for older kids and parents to ponder (more about that toward the end of the article).

There were a series of important milestones in the Old Vista Ridge trail saga that began in 2017, and led to this old trail formally being recognized by the Forest Service, once again. I previewed what was to come in this message I wrote in early July of that year on my annual scouting trip:

The second paragraph in the above entry refers to my oldest brother, Pete, who died unexpectedly and tragically of suicide that July, at just 66 years old. He died just two days before I wrote this message. Pete was a hero to me in every way, and I still think of him most days – but especially when I’m out on the trail.

I’d forgotten spending that day up on the Old Vista Ridge trail, so soon after his death, until I re-read this message. It makes sense. Owl Point continues to be one of my go-to places when I need to sort out life and regain perspective. As I said in that message in 2017, Pete would have loved it up there, and I only wish I had somehow made that happen when he was alive.

The 20-year-old me and my late brother Pete (right) talking cameras in 1982. Pete got me hooked on photography, music from folk to classical and so much more that defines me today. I can’t blame him for those overalls, however! Such was my wardrobe during my college years. I still have that camera that I’m holding – Olympus OM-1, my first real camera. Pete helped me pick it out. It still works as if it were brand new, and taking a roll of film with it now is like having Pete back, if only for the moment.

Two weeks after that early July scouting trip in 2017, I was joined by Forest Service (USFS) staff from the Hood River District and Trailkeepers of Oregon (TKO) executive director Steve Kruger for an official walk-through of the trail. The goal was to assess its restored condition and finalize an agreement with the USFS for TKO to adopt and maintain the trail in perpetuity in exchange for it being formally recognized by agency, once again. The USFS team included Claire Fernandez, then the Hood River District recreation manager, and two forest resource specialists, Mike and Ken (below)

Mike, Steve, Claire and Ken at Owl Point on July 26, 2017

Our first stop that day was at the unofficial trailhead, marked by these hand-made signs. The first order of business was to figure out where official USFS trail signs should be located to replace these user-made signs. It turned out that Claire had done some heavy lifting with a few of her USFS colleagues by smoothing over some bad feelings over these unsanctioned signs and advocating for the trail to be formally reopened. I’m convinced that without Claire’s efforts behind the scenes, the official status of the Old Vista Ridge Trail would still be in limbo.

The old user-made signs posted at the Old Vista Ridge trailhead in July 2017

When we reached Owl Point, I held my breath as Claire immediately spotted the register box, then opened it and began reading through some of the messages in the log. I watched out of the corner of my eye from fifteen feet away, pretending to take photos. I was certain we would be asked to remove it, along with the hand-made trail signage. In just five years, the box had become an important part of what made Owl Point such a fun hike, and I was dreading a request to remove it.

Instead, she carefully packed the log back into the register box after reading entries for a few minutes, then closed the lid and didn’t say a word about it to me. I’ve never asked her, but I suspect as a person who has devoted her professional life to outdoor recreation, she appreciated the dozens of joyful, often quite personal notes that people had been moved to write in the log while at the view from Owl Point.

The Owl Point Register box in July 2017

The Forest Service walk-through hike that day finally sent the formal paperwork into motion, and TKO officially adopted the Old Vista Ridge trail later that year. As you will see later in this article, the timing couldn’t have been better, as future events would have made it nearly impossible for volunteers to unofficially keep the trail open.

This entry from 2017 jumped out to me for the fact that a pair of long-distance visitors (England and Connecticut) made their way to Katsuk Point, an off-trail, somewhat challenging trek that few hikers attempt:

Here’s yet another message from the Portland Parks & Recreation Senior Hikers group. By 2017, they had become annual visitors, with a group of 17 along for this hike:

Here’s a message I’ve included as a cultural date stamp, as even the Owl Point Register wasn’t immune from a Game of Thrones reference in 2017 — though I was pleased to see that Owl Point won out over the premier episode!

I love the following message from a first-time solo hiker. Noting the date, it is surely must have been one that Claire read when she opened the log four days later? Perhaps it was this wonderful, heartfelt entry that saved the Owl Point Register?

August messages in the log book commonly mention the two things that seem to arrive every summer, these days: huckleberries and wildfire smoke:

The smoke had cleared a week later when I posted this message (below) in the log on August 21, 2017. The event? The solar eclipse that had turned Oregon into crazytown that year. While Owl Point was just outside the path of totality, I was looking for solitude that day, and decided to experience something short of totality from the Old Vista Ridge Trail, away from the predicted traffic jams. As it turned out, I was the only person there that day!

Why, I even included highly scientific sketches of the eclipse phases in my log message! I had, in fact, mapped out the path in detail using some of the tools (below) that were available for eclipse-watchers.

Totality path of the August 2017 solar eclipse

Detailed delineation of the totality zone beginning just south of Mount Hood

I wasn’t sure what to expect from the eclipse, but I wanted to capture both a timed sequence of images and some informal shots. Add in an iPhone, I was busy documenting the slow-motion changes unfolding in the sky.

My camera kit for the day: two DSLRs with wide and telephoto options. Not pictured: two tripods… a heavy load that day!

I arrived at Owl Point a few minutes past 9 AM to find a clear, bright sky. A typical summer day on the Old Vista Ridge trail:

The view from Owl Point in the hour prior to the eclipse

Here’s my camera setup as the eclipse began to unfold. This was taken with my iPhone, and picked up a weird yellowish glare that was filtered out of the images captured on my two larger cameras:

Dual cameras ready to go as the eclipse begins

Assembling a series of images from the camera on the left, this sequence (below) spans the eclipse from beginning to totality. In final two images, the bright band along the west shoulder of the mountain is actually daylight from beyond the path of totality – an unexpected and otherworldly effect.

[click here for a large view of this sequence]

This iPhone panorama was taken as totality approached, and gives a better sense of how strange it was to be looking south, past the path of totality, to the daylight beyond. It might look like a cloud band, but it’s really a thin strip of night passing overhead:

Panorama of the eclipse as it approached totality

I’d created a schedule with 10-minute intervals between timed images, so I also took advantage of the healthy huckleberry crop at Owl Point that day…

One-half water bottle is enough for a huckleberry cobbler…!

This message from September 2017 (below) is a first in the log – a portmanteau! The Schweitzer + Franks families = the Schwanks! I’m going to guess that Latte was a canine member of the party, and I especially liked the unexpected last part of this entry. So many people are inspired to reflect on lost friends and family while at Owl Point.

More long-distance visitors from California came to Owl Point to close out the 2017 hiking season:

…and these out-of-towners from Texas opened the 2018 season:

More early visitors in 2018, with the second group spending the night at Owl Point and adding botanical sketches:

While there are a few posts in the Owl Point Log that mention overnight stays, they’re not common. I suspect that’s mainly because there’s no water source up there, and thus the group above would have had to carry water in (including for Cedar) to augment the wine and beer!

Here’s a post from a couple of trail friends that I run into periodically who were up at Owl Point in 2018 as part of the Cascade Pika Watch effort:

Here’s a notable, if understated, post from that same day in early July, 2018, when the Old Vista Ridge trail was formally re-dedicated as part of TKO’s 10^th Anniversary:

In fact, this event had originally been scheduled for September 2017, but the raging Eagle Creek Fire had closed public access to much of the area north of Mount Hood as the fire raced through the Hatfield Wilderness backcountry in the Columbia River Gorge.

The rescheduled event in 2018 kicked off with a typical trailhead orientation for volunteers, with TKO’s Steve Kruger presiding (in yellow hard hat):

TKO 10^th Anniversary trailhead talk at the Old Vista Ridge grand re-opening in July 2018

On this special day, TKO volunteers would be installing official USFS signage along the trail as part of the re-dedication, in addition to the annual tasks of clearing logs and brush.

New trail signs and posts in the USFS pickup in July 2018

These trail signs were installed by TKO volunteers in July 2018 and have survived six winters and counting. Volunteers also lugged six 8-foot 4×4” posts up the trail, each buried 18” in rocky soil – a real workout!

TKO Executive Director Steve Kruger and Hood River District Ranger Janeen Tervo re-dedicating the Old Vista Ridge trail on July 8, 2018. Cutting the ribbon involved a handsaw, loppers and trail flagging, of course. Old and new trailhead signs are leaning against the base of the tree

TKO grand re-opening celebration at Owl Point on July 8, 2018 – the first of our annual TKO anniversary events there

Two groups visiting Owl Point on the same day in late July 2018 shared the sentiment that so many of us can relate to – that we’re so very lucky to live here! My condolences to the folks who made the second entry, too. Vermont is lovely, but not as lovely as the Pacific Northwest (I may have just triggered a few Vermonters):

Another out-of-owner in 2018, this time from Connecticut…

By August 2018, the original Owl Point Log had completely filled, and I placed a blank, new edition. For the next year or so, I also left the original log in place for folks to read, with this message:

Closing out the original Owl Point Log after six years…

The cover of the original Owl Point Log after six years up on the mountain

The new Owl Point Log (Volume 2) begins with this message:

I placed the new log as part of yet another TKO trip to the Old Vista Ridge trail on August 5, 2018. Most of the volunteers that day were focused on clearing the last few logs on the trail, but I worked with TKO intern Karen to finish installing the last of the trail signs at Owl Point (below) and Alki Point.

The author and TKO intern Karen installing the (then) brand new Owl Point spur trail sign in August 2018

More out-of-towners in 2018, this time from Maryland visiting a recently transplanted New Yorker:

…and another annual visit in 2018 from the Portland Parks & Recreation Senior Hikers group – 25 hikers on this outing!

Hiker Jim (below) was apparently so elated with the view from Owl Point in September 2018 that he was suspended in mid-air above the rocks (or so I interpret his sketch):

Guide book author Matt Reeder (below) is a longtime friend of the Old Vista Ridge trail, having not only included it in his “Off the Beaten Trail” guide, but also placing a photo from the trail on the cover!

Matt Reader featured a view from the Old Vista Ridge Trail on his “Off the Beaten Trail” guide

This series of visitors in early October, 2018 shared a common fate: Mount Hood lost in the clouds:

You might wonder why people would pick a viewpoint trail on a cloudy day, but it’s not that simple with Owl Point, especially early and late in the hiking season. Vista Ridge and Owl Point lie precisely on the Cascade divide, a mile-high crest where moist marine air coming off the Pacific often condenses into a low cloud cap, even as Mount Hood rises above into blue skies.

Here’s what it looks like at Owl Point when this happens – this is the view west, into the fog that is seemingly a stationary cloud:

Cloud cap engulfing Owl Point on a fall day

Yet, looking east toward the Hood River Valley you can see the cloud isn’t stationary, at all – and, in fact, is dissipating right above you, with blue skies to the east:

Looking toward the Hood River Valley and Surveyor’s Ridge from under a cloud cap at Owl Point

Here’s what that effect looks like from up on the Timberline Trail – a “cloud waterfall” of marine air condensing into a rolling fog bank as it pushes from the west (left) over Vista Ridge and Owl Point, then cascading and evaporating into the dry air mass to the east (right in this photo) side of the divide:

Cloud cap forming a “cloud waterfall” at Owl Point

This effect can be very local, or become widespread when a weak Pacific front pushes in, as shown in this view from above Elk Cove, looking down on the Cascade divide and Owl Point:

Widespread “cloud waterfalls” along the Cascade crest – the view looking north from Mount Hood toward Mount St. Helens

Even on the clearest spring and fall days, cloud banks can form over Vista Ridge and Owl Point without notice. The clouds those October 2018 hikers encountered had cleared by the time I visited later that month, with an added bonus: they had dusted the mountain with an early coat of fresh snow – a magical time of year on the mountain:

The dusting of snow on Mount Hood described in my October 2018 log entry

Here’s a message from a dedicated grandma – with her 16-month toddler – that caught my eye:

This post from 2018 mentions another guidebook that helped bring folks to the Old Vista Ridge Trail, Paul Gerald’s popular “60 Hikes within 60 minutes of Portland” guide. A lesser-known fact is that Paul served on the TKO board for several years, including a stint as TKO board president. Thank you, Paul!

Kicking off the 2019 hiking season, this is perhaps the most international series of messages to date in the Owl Point Log:

I’ve circled the exclamation marks – while I can’t read the least three messages, they all seem to have been impressed with the view from Owl Point!

Here’s one more from that group of international visitors in 2019 (and if you are a reader of this blog and can translate any of these messages, please add as a comment):

An “opposites attract” milestone message in July 2019, plus more out-of-towners from North Carolina:

…and yet another milestone message. There have been a few marriage proposals and baby announcements, but this is the first adoption announcement to appear in the Owl Point Log. I especially loved that a subsequent visitor added a congratulations:

Here’s the first “animal in heat” (!) sticker to appear in the log, along with some very polished cartoons:

Yet another pair of entries from the author, this time on a scouting trip in July 2019 for the annual TKO anniversary event on the Old Vista Ridge Trail:

When I re-read this message for this article, I wondered just how gorgeous those clouds really were? Digging back into my photo archives, it’s true – they were spectacular:

WyEast looking lovely under painterly clouds back in the summer of 2019

…the mountain was pretty nice that day, too!

Here’s another long-distance visitor in 2019, this time from Germany:

My rough translation of the above entry: “It was a wonderful day at Mount Hood. My dad and I had a great day. I love Oregon.” German speakers, help me out if you can!

Also from July 2019, another successful Pika survey:

It doesn’t surprise me that Pika thrive here. While their habitat throughout the west is threatened by climate change, much of the talus (their sole habitat) faces southeast and is shaded from late afternoon heat by the Owl Point ridgeline and stands of Noble fir. Hopefully, this will be enough to keep their familiar “meep” calls coming from the rocks here for decades to come.

Here’s a string of recent arrivals (from Nashville) and more long-distance visitors who stopped by on the same day in July, 2019 (if you can help with translation, please add a comment).

August 2019 brought the second annual TKO celebration to the Old Vista Ridge trail (below) with another large group of volunteers for our annual trail tending. More logs to clear, more huckleberries to brush away from the trail and another fine day up at the mountain!

In that second year of what has since become our annual tradition, we captured the next in a series of group portraits that continue to this day (below). So far, the mountain has been out for every one of our events up at Owl Point. Though that streak surely can’t last forever, it does make for a great photo opportunity:

Team portrait from the annual TKO stewardship event in 2019

Here are a few more excerpts from 2019 in the Owl Point Log, beginning with this post that is personally inspiring to me, as hiking until I die is one of my life goals!

This post from first-timers in 2019 carries a common theme found through the log – that Owl Point is now on their annual hiking list:

This entry from September, 2019 made me smile – a couple of parents who survived summer break with kids seeking refuge at Owl Point and more out-of-towners (Colorado and Utah) discovering our huckleberries:

These back-to-back entries from October 2019 provide a nice contrast of “locals right where they’re meant to be” followed by more faraway visitors from Australia and The Netherlands reminding us that we live in a slice of Heaven here in WyEast country:

More out-of-towners from Seattle and West Palm Beach to close out the 2019 season, just ahead of the first snowfall that year:

As the snow began to fall that winter, burying the Old Vista Ridge trail under several feet of snow, we couldn’t have imagined that the entire world was about to turn upside down. Even our public lands were closed to entry in those early weeks of the COVID pandemic in the spring of 2020. By June of that year, public lands had reopened, and masked, pandemic-stressed hikers began arriving at Owl Point:

As if charting the five stages of grief, messages in the Owl Point Log in 2020 become more circumspect as the summer season arrived. Pandemic commentary gave way to life milestones and personal reflections as socially-distanced people reconnected with one another on the trail – among the safest places to be during the pandemic.

These friends reunited to celebrate a birthday (Chris is mentioned in Part 1 of this article):

Trails were an especially important refuge for older hikers in 2020, considered the most vulnerable among us to the COVID-19 virus – like these veteran hikers:

This pair of messages (below) from July 18, 2020 caught my eye. Hikers Matt and Jen filled in the creative blank left by Josh and Marissa on – collaboration!

The year 2020 had more unpleasant surprises for Oregon with the Labor Day windstorm and subsequent forests fires that raged up and down the Cascades. Owl Point was not spared from the wind event, and you can spot it in the Owl Point Log comments. I’ve highlighted a comment I wrote in the margins that fall to mark the windstorm:

The mess was as bad as the many comments in the Owl Point Log suggested. Dozens of trees were down, especially along the first mile of the Old Vista Ridge Trail. Here’s what the trail looked like in the spring of 2021, when I made my first trip to survey the damage:

Blowdown from the 2020 Labor Day windstorm burying the Old Vista Ridge Trail

Most startling were the number of very large trees that went down at the Old Vista Ridge trailhead. Yet, somehow the sign TKO volunteers had installed just two years before was (mostly) spared in jumble of debris:

Dented but still standing – the Old Vista Ridge trailhead sign after the 2020 Labor Day windstorm

The author surveying the damage from the 2020 Labor Day windstorm

It would still be a few weeks before TKO volunteers were scheduled to clear the mess in the summer of 2021 when I added the following message, so I included a bit of encouragement to hikers who were still pushing their way through debris to reach Owl Point that year:

This was the scene on August 11, 2021 when TKO volunteers descended upon the Old Vista Ridge trail and began the task of clearing dozens of downed trees:

TKO volunteers tackled many piles of fallen trees like this in 2021 (Photo: TKO)

TKO used the event as an opportunity provide crosscut saw training to volunteers, a requirement in wilderness areas where power saws are banned:

TKO volunteers clearing the trail one log at a time with crosscut saws (Photo: TKO)

Newly cleared section of the Old Vista Ridge trail in August 2021 (Photo: TKO)

Despite the messy trail conditions that year, you could feel the collective exhale of folks as the pandemic restrictions were gradually lifted. Plenty of thankful messages like these appear in the Owl Point Log:

This is a fun post from that summer (below). Ali got the last word in, but do you think Brendon knew what she had written?

Meanwhile, these Rhode Islanders were in Oregon for a wedding in September 2021:

That year brought the first out-of-towners from eastern Canada, too:

Here’s the final from 2021 – an especially philosophical message left very late in the hiking season:

The 2022 hiking season arrived with a very late snowmelt, as noted by these long-distance visitors from the Netherlands:

There were still big snowdrifts in a few spots when I visited a week later with my old friend Ted and his two kids, who were home from college. It was a brisk, breezy and beautiful day to show off the beauty of Owl Point to some first-time visitors:

The author giving Ted and his kids a tour of heaven

Ted’s kids asked for some extra adventure, so I obliged with an off-trail visit to Katsuk Point and one of the more dramatic ceremonial Indian pit located nearby:

Blustery, beautiful day at Katsuk Point

Off-trail Indian Pit near Owl Point

Here’s another thoughtful message (and a toast!) from that summer, posted by out-of-towners from Minnesota and Wisconsin:

…and another Wisconsin group from the week prior – girls trip!

Mount Hood seems to inspire haiku – this entry was added in late August of 2022:

Not surprisingly, this isn’t the first mention of aliens in the Owl Point Log, but it might be the best:

Hiking buddies Kyrie and David left this very detailed sketch of the mountain in September 2022:

More locals returning to Owl Point in October 2022, plus road-trip out-of-towners from the Bay Area admiring our mountain:

Among the last messages from 2022 is from these Scranton, Pennsylvania out-of-towners, who were also enthused about trendy restaurants in Portland:

The 2023 season opens with one of the finest entries to date in the Owl Point Log. Hiker Anna gives a literary spin to the natural history of the area, including a nice botanical sketch of Beargrass in bloom (the second in that I’ve included in this article):

Beargrass and Avalanche Lilies are mentioned often in the log by early summer visitors, so to put a face on these wildflowers, here’s a quick primer on these favorites.

First up, Avalanche Lily. The explosion of these lovely wildflowers in the Dollar Lake Burn area has made the main Vista Ridge Trail a new favorite among photographers, but there are plenty of these lilies growing along the northern sections of the Old Vista Ridge trail. The form carpets of white flowers under the Noble Fir canopy in late June and early July, especially in the section between Blind Luck Meadow and the Owl Point junction.

Avalanche Lilies near Owl Point in early July

Beargrass is also found throughout the hike to Owl Point, but it is most prolific in the area around Blind Luck Meadow and fringing the talus slopes at Owl Point, itself. Beargrass blooms in June and early July on tall spikes that gradually unfold whorls of tiny, individual blossoms from the bottom, up.

This example at Owl Point has just begun to bloom:

Beargrass bloom beginning to unfurl

Here’s an example of Beargrass at Blind Luck Meadow at it peak, with the top of the spire fully open. For photographers, this is the Beargrass bloom stage they are seeking:

Beargrass in full bloom

Beargrass are fickle in their blooming habits. While there’s a widespread myth that these flowers bloom in seven-year cycles, it is true that individual plants rarely bloom in consecutive years. The abundance of blooming Beargrass in a particular area is more a measure of abundant spring rainfall, soil moisture and especially access to sunlight. Owl Point had prolific Beargrass years in 2016 and 2021, while other years had few or no bloom at all.

2016 Beargrass bloom at Owl Point

Another myth is that bears eat Beargrass roots. Also not true, though deer and elk to graze on their foliage, and bears have been known to use their leaves as bedding. Native peoples also used the tough leaves from Beargrass in woven baskets and the fleshy roots for medicinal purposes.

This brings me to the conclusion of the second volume of the Owl Point Log book in, with yet another entry of my own, made while on a TKO scouting trip in July 2023. Notable in this message was the plume of smoke that I watched rising from the east shoulder of the mountain while I was at Owl Point that day. The fire turned out to be further south, along the White River. By the time reached home that night, it had exploded into a substantial fire.

Then, there was this entry from later that month in 2023 (below) by two USFS rangers researching the trail. Once again, I was relieved to read that they appreciated the Owl Point Register box and log book – and the view, of course!

This note (below) marked the most ambitious annual TKO outing to date on the Old Vista Ridge Trail. Not only were there volunteers clearing logs and brush along the Old Vista Ridge trail, a separate group had backpacked to WyEast Basin and spent two days clearing over 100 logs from the main Vista Ridge trail with crosscut saws.

The annual event portrait for 2023 (below) shows both crews meeting up at Owl Point for lunch. On hand were a couple gallons of ice-cold lemonade (hauled two miles in!) and several dozen homemade cookies. The bright yellow sunshades mark the overnight crew that worked the Vista Ridge trail – a very exposed area since the 2011 Dollar Fire swept through.

The dual-crew TKO meetup at Owl Point in 2023

TKO crosscut crews on the main Vista Ridge Trail for an overnight logout in July 2023 (Photo: TKO)

Crosscut crews celebrating 110 logs cleared in two days in 2023

The final (and perfect) entry in Volume 2 of the Owl Point Log is this artful sketch (below) by Honey. I’m going to guess that Honey climbed a tree while at Owl Point?

The second volume was close to full by August 2023, but worse, the cover was falling apart. A kind visitor had done some first aid with duct tape, but alas, it was time to retire this one…

The second volume to the Owl Pont Log was well-loved..

And so, I left this note to close out the second volume:

Where are the first two volumes of the Owl Point Log kept? In TKO’s archives – which really means a closet in my home office. When TKO does have an archive, someday, they will move to that more appropriate place.

The archived first and second editions of the Owl Pont Log… safe in my closet

…and so, in August of last year I place the third volume of the Owl Point Log in the summit register, along with a fresh version of the Old Vista Ridge scrapbook, maps and visual guide to Mount Hood’s features (below). Judging by the folds, and comments in the log, these get well-used by hikers wanting to learn a bit more about the area and Mount Hood.

The contents of the Owl Point Register – log, scrapbook, maps and a guide to Mount Hood’s features

And what about the box, itself? So far, it’s doing remarkably well (below), considering the abuse it receives from the elements up on Owl Point. I painted it with army-green Rustoleum back in 2012, and though it’s showing some rust around the edges, It has remained water-tight for twelve years and counting.

Eleven winters and counting at Owl Point

[click here for a large version]

For those who don’t recognize it, the box is an old Army ammo can that I picked up at the venerable (and since closed) Andy and Bax in Portland. At some point, I’ll need to replace the box, as well – and find a new army surplus store!

What’s ahead for the Old Vista Ridge Trail?

When TKO adopted the Old Vista Ridge Trail – our founding trail – it was part of a broader vision for the area that TKO presented to the Forest Service in 2016. There are lots of proposals in that vision for improving trails and trailhead on the north side of Mount Hood. Among them, the next priority is to provide a route to Owl Point from the east, from the Laurance Lake trailhead.

TKO volunteers clearing a log near Owl Point in July 2024

Currently, TKO’s adopted segment of the Old Vista Ridge trail ends at this sign (below), at Alki Point. From here, the unmaintained trail continues downhill to the site of the old Red Hill Guard Station and tiny Perry Lake (more of a pond).

TKO intern Karen helping plant the “trail not maintained” sign at the end of the adopted segment of the Old Vista Ridge Trail in 2018

TKO’s vision is to construct a roughly one-mile connector from Perry Lake to the upper trailhead of the Laurance Lake trail. This schematic shows the proposed connector, as viewed from high on Mount Hood, looking north:

[click here for a large version]

The Laurance Lake Trail was built sometime in the early 1990s and originally envisioned as a mountain bike loop. However, a landslide destroyed the old logging spur that was intended to complete the loop. Later, that part of the planned route was incorporated into the Mount Hood Wilderness, and bicycle travel is now prohibited there.

The orphaned stub of the Laurance Lake Trail remains popular for the views of the lake (below) from the open talus slope the trail traverses and the easy uphill grade that was originally built for bikes.

Laurance Lake and Mount Hood from the Laurance Lake Trail

Beyond the talus slopes the trail reaches a ridgetop that eventually extends west to Owl Point. An upper trailhead exists here, too, making construction of the connector trail convenient for crews, since work on the new trail would begin here.

Upper trailhead for the Laurance Lake Trail

Hikers have worn a path along the first quarter mile of the proposed route to and opening along the valley rim (below), with a sweeping view of the mountain.

Upper Laurance Lake Trail viewpoint

From the upper trailhead and viewpoint, the new connector would travel through a gently sloped forest for about a mile, then emerge where the unmaintained section of the Old Vista Ridge trail begins. From here, a series of expansive views into the Mount Hood Wilderness unfold along the way to Owl Point.

One of the many views along the unmaintained section of the Old Vista Ridge Trail (photo: Janice Abbagliato Messervier)

There is no timeline for this work, and federal planning processes are slow, but I’m hopeful that this new route and others that TKO has proposed can happen sooner than later. It’s no secret why people are increasingly seeking time out on trails in our public lands – the many messages in the Owl Point Log are testament to that – and there’s a tremendous backlog in meeting that need. I’m looking forward to working with TKO to be part of making it happen.

The annual TKO event at Owl Point in 2024

[click here for a large version]

Thanks for indulging me this far in a rather sprawling article and a trip down memory lane! As always, I appreciate folks stopping by and especially for being a friend of WyEast.

Hope to see you on the trail, sometime!
______________

Tom Kloster | August 2024

Restoring Trails… and Hope? The Owl Point Register Story (Part 1 of 2)

July 14, 2024 / Tom Kloster / 2 Comments

Dad and daughter signing in at Owl Point in 2016 (photo courtesy of Sergey Kiselev)

Making time for this blog is always a challenge, given my day job, caring for family and a broken-down old house… and all the other distractions in life that we ALL tend to! So, I’m a bit tardy with this article. But to be candid, it’s the political chaos unfolding at the national level in this election year that has been on my mind in a big way, making it hard to think about the places and things I care about most, right here in WyEast country. I also know I’m hardly alone in being discouraged and fearful about what the November election might bring for our country. It’s a crazy time in America. Again.

Then I had a breakthrough last week. I was up at my beloved Owl Point, on Mount Hood’s north side, scouting for an upcoming trail stewardship event. While there, I was doing my annual tending to the summit register I placed there in 2012. It’s a simple setup: a painted steel ammo box with some maps and photos of the area and a simple log book for folks to sign.

Twelve tough years in the elements, and the Owl Point Register is still holding up in 2024!

When I placed it back in in the fall of 2012, I didn’t expect a big response. Though the Old Vista Ridge trail to Owl Point had been re-opened by volunteers five years prior, in the summer of 2007, it was still only lightly visited. The Forest Service would not formally recognize the trail as “maintained” for another five years. Looking back now — twelve years later — more than 1,000 entries by individuals, couples, families, hiking groups and even the occasional dog fill 272 pages (and counting) that have now spilled into a third edition of the register!

Given its popularity, I’ve always fretted about the box being vandalized or stolen, thus losing all those entries and the wonderful personal histories they contain. Therefore, whenever I’m up at Owl Point I take photos of the latest entries as a backup, of sorts. In this way, I’ve maintained a running digital (so to speak) version of the register since the very beginning.

It was in this context of capturing the latest entries that I came across the following message last week. It had been entered last October, just before the winter snows closed in on Owl Point:

Reading Danielle’s brave, vulnerable message immediately broke through the political noise, dread and polarization that has been swirling in my head in this miserable election season. It reminded me that the antidote to all of the toxicity washing over our society right was right in front of me – Mount Hood towering above and Danielle’s personal testament in my hands. It was a needed reminder of the limitless restorative powers of just being out in nature, rediscovering who we are and what we care about most, and being reminded that we’re always stronger than we think.

And therein was the breakthrough for me: return my own focus to being an active advocate and steward for our natural landscapes right here in WyEast Country: for a better future for Mount Hood and the Gorge and for the trails that provide access for everyone to our precious public lands.

Restoring my focus back to these things that matter most to me, and making time to be outside in nature has already helped provide me the renewed sense of hope and perspective I’ll need to make a difference this fall — and beyond. It was always there, but Danielle’s messages was the reminder I needed to look past the discouraging distractions and toward things that I can directly impact right here in my corner of the world.

Mount Hood shining under a brilliant summer sky last week in this view from Owl Point – the highlight of the Old Vista Ridge trail

And thus, this article. It’s simply a collection of highlights that I’ve selection from the hundreds of messages posted in the Owl Point Register since 2012. I’ve chosen them based upon the joy, hope, graciousness and good humor they offer. They range from poignant and spiritual to whimsical and silly. Yet, in every message you can feel how just being there at Owl Point, taking in that amazing scene, has inspired these messages. The first batch of selections spans the first five seasons, from fall 2012 through 2016. Part 2 of this article will draw highlights from 2017 through the present.

I hope these will resonate with you as they do with me, perhaps restoring some much-needed hope and faith in humanity for you, as well, in this crazy, consequential time we are living in.

It all started in October 2012…

The freshly painted Owl Point Register on the day it was placed – October 17, 2012. The ammo can was from Andy & Bax in Portland (the iconic store recently closed, ending an era). I added a coat of army-green Rustoleum and some shaky, hand-painted lettering…

The Owl Point Register came about as part of a plan to bring more folks to the (then) little-known Old Vista Ridge trail, with an eye toward creating broader awareness of this largely unknown corner of Mount Hood’s backcountry. The register not only lets visitors share their thoughts with those who follow in their footsteps, it also describes the rich history of the area, and has maps and a photo guide to the features on Mount Hood that they can study as they take in the view.

In 2009, President Obama signed an expansion of the Mount Hood Wilderness into law that pushed the protected area north by about a mile, to where it now follows much of the Old Vista Ridge trail as the official wilderness boundary. It was a welcome recognition of the restored trail and an overdue expansion of protections for the mountain, yet still leaves the rugged country north of the trail unprotected. Thus, the continued goal to make the area known to hikers who can help advocate for its future. As recently as 2008, the Forest Service had proposed an off-road vehicle “play area” for Owl Point and Old Vista Ridge, so the risks of losing this wild place are still very real.

Old Vista Ridge Jedi-volunteer Jamie Chabot becoming one of the first to sign the new register on a foggy day in November 2012

Within the first year, the register began to fill with messages from hikers. Many were astonished at the “new” view from Owl Point that the trail provided – one of the finest of the mountain, and yet largely unknown at the time. There were also many kudos for those who had rescued the Old Vista Ridge trail and continued to restore this historic route. This was especially rewarding to the handful of trail volunteers doing the work, as it was still unofficial, and there was no guarantee that the Forest Service would eventually recognize the trail, even in its restored state.

The opening message in the register was written by me on October 17, with a bit of an introduction to Owl Point:

I’d forgotten until preparing this article that I also recorded scattering the ashes of my beloved grandparents on that first day! They had asked me to someday place their remains on Mount Hood, and there simply was simply no better place than Owl Point. I still check in with them every time I’m up there – and they always report that they’re enjoying the amazing view!

2013

The register began to really catch on during its first full season at Owl Point, in 2013. Among the early surprises: international visitors… to Owl Point? It turns out this hike description that I wrote in the Oregon Hikers Field Guide had reached far beyond the shadow of Mount Hood to wherever internet access existed. In this case, all the way to Saipan:

…and soon, more international visitors to Owl Point – from Austria:

…and from France!

The postscript from the French visitors surprised me, too! I don’t know that Americans have any better track record than Europeans when it comes to respecting public spaces, but I do think that the particular slice of humanity that is willing to walk two miles into a wilderness for a mountain view does. Hikers are good people.

2014

As the popularity of the Old Vista Ridge trail continued to grow, entries in the Owl Point Register began to include organized hiking groups, like this one:

Every year, I’ve also added my own entries to help me track the changes since my last visit. Here’s a message from a trail tending trip in 2014 with Jeff Statt, another Jedi-volunteer. As you can see, seeing other hikers on the trail was still a novelty at the time and very rewarding:

So, what did the mountain look like on that June day in 2014? Like this:

The view from Owl Point in June 2014

Here’s Jedi Jeff reading some of the latest entries in the register on that day back in 2014:

Jedi-volunteer Jeff Statt reading the Owl Point Register in 2014

Among my favorite entries over the years are those from young families. I had the good fortune of growing up with an outdoors-oriented family, an experience that has since shaped every aspect of my life. Thus, I love to see young parents adventuring into the forest with their kids. In this case, parents Mike and Brittany signed in with a bunch of kids in July 2014:

This notable entry in 2014 is from documentary film maker Christopher Alley, made on a scouting trip to Owl Point:

Chris (white shirt in the photo, below) returned the next year with his crew, and I was privileged to come along for the ride. Spending time with them ranks among the best adventures I’ve stumbled into in my life.

Documentary filmmaker Chris Alley and his crew at Owl Point in 2015

Plenty of close friendships are shared in the Owl Point Register, too – along with many Owl-themed sketches and memes:

So, where did Owl Point get its name? No, not from any official proclamation or map. I confess: I made it up! But that backstory will have to wait until a future article…

By the fall of 2014, the register was filling up fast, often with reflective messages from visitors near and far – like this introspective pair from North Carolina:

Often visitors are inspired to include ballpoint art of Mount Hood, like this entry from October 2014:

I’m a visual thinker, too, so I do appreciate the urge to draw when inspired – thank you, Francesca!

2015

Reunited with my college friend David in May 2015

The Old Vista Ridge trail to Owl Point has become one of my go-to hikes with out-of-town visitors looking for a Mount Hood adventure. Such was the case in the spring of 2015 when my college roommate David Shafer (above, with me) was in town. David is originally from Portland, so while he’s been in Colorado for many years, now, he still knows his Hood – as you can tell from his message in the Owl Point Register:

I’m not the only person who brings out-of-towners to Owl Point – in this case, sibling escaping to the mountain in June 2015:

For the record, in the years since this message was posted, those confusing junctions have largely been resolved, and signs posted at those that remain, so fewer folks are getting turned around on the route to the Owl Point trailhead.

The spectacular view of Mount Hood from Owl Point has inspired many spiritual reflections in the register over the years – like this one:

This 2015 message from a Chinese visitor came complete with Mandarin and English praises for our mountain:

Continuing the out-of-town theme, these visitors from Oregon, Texas and Sydney, Australia made the trip on consecutive days in June of 2015:

…though the meaning of the Aussie message is lost in translation for me!

Here’s another from around the world, this time a reflective message from a Russian visitor seeking the restorative power that is so specific to time spent alone on a mountain trail:

Here’s another spiritual sentiment from 2015 that I can sign onto…

…and on the same day, two families taking dad out for a hike on Father’s Day recorded this:

Still another family (and their dog) and some visitors from Idaho left this entry in June 2015:

These youngsters left a message in June 2015:

No doubt Eli and Tyson enjoyed the view, but one of the best parts of having a summit register is watching kids’ eyes light up when they see it. I don’t know how much they absorb from its contents, but they DO love to open the box and unpack it!

This message from a pair of especially energetic hikers caught my eye:

One of my goals is to eventually complete a trail connecting Old Vista Ridge to Laurance Lake, something the Forest Service has already agreed to in concept, at least. This would allow for a very long wilderness loop for backpackers that connects Owl Point to the Timberline Trail via Elk Cove and WyEast Basin.

Here’s the first post from a Vermonter…

…and this is an enthusiastic message from one of the formal hiking groups that have added Owl Point to their annual offerings. These folks were in an older group of 60+ “spring chickens” from Portland:

Second only to seeing young kids on the trail, I do love to see older hikers on outings like this. They inspire me, as I’m now in their cohort (ahem!) at age 62, and they seem – make that, they ARE – among the happiest, most contented people I know!

Still more out-of-towners, this time two South Carolinians celebrating an anniversary – another surprisingly common theme among visitors to Owl Point:

…and still more out-of-towners visiting WyEast country in July 2015 (with their dog) – this time from Detroit and San Francisco:

As had been the case for several years, I was joined once again by Jedi-volunteers Jamie and Jeff in the summer of 2015 for more trail tending (below). At this point in its restoration, the Old Vista Ridge trail was starting to look like it had never been abandoned, with the growing number of boots on the trail making it look well used and well loved.

Old Vista Ridge Jedi-volunteers Jeff Statt and Jamie Chabot

This message from July 2015 is a first for the register – a marriage proposal! These folks were visiting from Minnesota:

…and naturally she said “yes”! It’s the Owl Point effect, and this is just one of my life events that have been recorded in the Owl Point register over the past 12 years.

Sometimes complete strangers become acquaintances by virtue of meeting on a trail like Old Vista Ridge, as seems to be the case with these visitors:

More out-of-towners, this time hecking the box for visitors to the Upper Left corner of the country from the Lower Right corner:

This eclectic group took me a few reads to figure out, but we seem to have five out-of-towners (two from the U.K.) visiting a Portlander:

Sometimes visitors leave big, bold messages of hope – like this one from August 2015:

…and sometimes there’s just anonymous whimsey… or maybe not?

The above time machine message was just too much for this youngster to resist a few days later:

Aha! So, cavemen eat hikers, too? Well, I’ll just add them to the list with mosquitos and black flies… and dinosaurs.

Place a summit register in front of a stunning mountain view, and you often find entries from people experiencing a crossroad in their life or celebrating a personal milestone. This message is such a great example. I’ve included an enlargement of the sidebar on the left (which is a bit difficult to read), as this is the crux of the message from this transplanted New Yorker:

Enlarged view of the reflective sidebar:

The challenge of a new trail, the experience of being in a deep forest, the vastness of a mountain view spreading out before you and the satisfaction of reaching your destination. This seems to inspire so many visitors to Owl Point to step away from the background noise of their daily lives and allow needed time for reflection and restoring the sense of peace of gratitude that we all need. I know it has this effect on me, every time I go there.

More out-of-towners in 2015, this time from Wisconsin and Missouri:

And another New Yorker, this time a young person in their mid-20s joining their grandmother’s hiking group for the trip to Owl Point. There are many family entries like this, and they underscore the role trails can play in creating experiences that bridge generations and bond our relationships:

On the theme of family bonding, Jedi-volunteer Jamie Chabot wasn’t all work at Owl Point back in 2015. Here, he made a point of bringing his young boys to walk the trail their dad helped build:

Jamie is a single dad, so making the time to help restore the Old Vista Ridge trail and provide his boys with an outdoor-oriented life takes real effort. Hopefully his boys (below, with Jamie, in early 2015) will hike this trail for many decades to come, knowing that their dad played an important part in making it happen!

Jedi-volunteer Jamie Chabot on the trail with his boys in 2015

Here are still more grateful out-of-staters admiring our backyard in 2015 – these folks are from South Carolina and Wisconsin:

One of the final entries recorded in the fall of 2015 is what mindfulness and gratitude are all about. This is why public lands, and the trails that allow us to experience them, matter so much in our modern world:

2016

While this year’s election year turmoil has brought back unwelcome flashbacks to the 2016 election debacle, that year was especially lovely at Owl Point. The Beargrass bloom cycle was enjoying one of its peak years (below) and a healthy snowpack on the mountain lingered well into summer.

Summer 2016 brought a spectacular Beargrass bloom to Owl Point

These grateful hikers were among the first to hike the trail in 2016 when they visited on Memorial Day, likely crossing a few snow patches along the way and leaving a reflective message of thanks and appreciation in the summit register:

This coming-of-age message from the same day in 2016 is among my favorites, as I was also 16 when I completed my own first solo overnight hike on Mount Hood:

Samuel is 24 years old, now, wherever he might be. Hopefully, this early confidence-builder will continue to be one of those childhood formative experiences that keep us pushing forward throughout our adult lives. I know it was for me – I still remember that first solo trip like it was yesterday!

Here are a pair of dog messages from the same day in June 2016 – the second one is especially inspired… in an offbeat, Steven Wright way:

The Old Vista Ridge trail is a great option for dogs. It’s largely forest traveling, with plenty of shade and a soft trail surface that’s easy on their pads. It’s also uncrowded, making it easier to navigate with your pup and avoid unwanted interactions with other dogs. Notably, while I have seen plenty of dogs up there in the 17 years I’ve been involved with this trail, I have yet to find one of those notorious, orphaned bags of dog poop left behind – that’s quite a streak!

This message from July 2016 took me a couple of reads to figure out, but it’s both tongue-in-cheek and an earnestly triumphant message from a person just getting their trail legs under them:

Here’s another favorite from that year. I love seeing families on the trail, and especially a single parent out their children. It takes a lot of commitment, but they’re doing such an important thing that will forever influence their kid’s lives:

(…and apologies for my thumb in a few of these – they were all taken up at Owl Point, and quite often I was battling the wind to hold the pages down with one hand while shooting the photos with the other!)

Here’s another out-of-towner, this time from Hawaii – a first for the register:

In this message, WyEast country counts as Heaven on earth, and I can surely sign on to that (and no offense to Ireland):

More mountain-inspired sketch art (and my thumb, again)….

…and still more art, this time from budding artists. Sure, I can see the mountain! I think…

I can definitely see the trees! Thank you for the fine art, Allison and Christine – and yes, it is beautiful.

Jedi-volunteers Jeff and Jamie clearing winter blowdown on the Old Vista Ridge trail in July 2016

A good number of messages in the register share the frustration at our unpredictable weather that the example below carries. Yet, these messages invariably end with deep appreciation for time spent in the mountains, even if “the friendly giant Mount Hood” is hiding in the clouds. As the saying goes, “there are no bad days on the trail”:

Still another New Yorker shared a message in 2016, this time a visitor from upstate – plus a couple of local dogs give two paws up on the view:

And yet another anniversary celebration that year….

This message from 2016 is significant for the mention of William Sullivan’s guidebook:

Sullivan added the Old Vista Ridge trail to his fourth edition of the popular Northwest Oregon hiking guide, published in 2013. This edition followed both the reopening of trail by volunteers, and the 2011 Dollar Lake Fire that torched the nearby Vista Ridge Trail. The fire left Old Vista Ridge and Owl Point untouched, which Sullivan describes as a shady, green alternatives to the better-known trails that now traverse the burn. Sullivan’s guide surely sent a few more hikers from well-beyond WyEast country to the trail.

Here’s a wonderful pair of messages from August 2016 that simply celebrate a friendship:

This brief message stands out for the location. The farm community of Parkdale is plainly visible from Owl Point, directly below, in the Upper Hood River valley. While it’s fun to see entries in the register from all over the world, it’s especially rewarding to know that local residents are enjoying this trail, too:

Here’s a fun message that covers a lot of ground, from corny jokes to a new life together that hikers Allie and Tom were about to embark upon:

Bonus points to this couple for the owl sketch and symbolism! Hopefully, they can still return to Owl Point once in a while to recharge and remember this significant day for them back in 2016.

Jeff and Jamie relaxing on the rocks at Owl Point after a day of trail work in July 2016…

…where the view is the reward!

Still more out-of-staters in the register in 2016, this time from Scott and Grant in Georgia:

I googled it, and that last part refers to the Georgia Institute of Technology mascot – the Yellow Jackets! Georgia Tech is located in downtown Atlanta and Cumming is a northern suburb.

Here’s a message from September 2016 that jumps from a simple weather report to being surprisingly philosophical:

This message is straightforward, but “my favorite hike” is always music to my ears when it comes to Old Vista Ridge and Owl Point:

…and then there’s this message that still resonates today – or echoes, perhaps?

Note the date. The country was in the middle of deeply divisive political meltdown that fall, just as we find ourselves in today. As the current election cycle looms, this message from eight years ago is such a good reminder to take time out and gain perspective in that way that a day on the mountain can provide. The sound of wind and scent of a mountain forest really can help drown out the unwelcome echoes from everyday life that we often carry with us.

Just a few days ahead of the 2016 election, Rex and Jay were poetic in this message – though I still can’t figure out what “somambucent” means!

That fall brought a lot of reflective comments to the Owl Point register. Here are a pair of messages left on the Sunday before the 2016 election – one from a philosopher and the other a first-timer to our mountains:

..and on that same November Sunday, a pair of visitors with multiple aliases left this tongue-in-cheek ode to determination “to be read in a deep, raspy voice”. I chose Orson Welles:

This message – left three days after the 2016 election – serves as yet another reminder that we’ll always need our trails (and the public lands they lead us into) as a counterbalance to the twists and turns of everyday life. Trails help us reconnect with “what is truly important in our lives” when we most need to restore that faith.

I’m quoting Patty and Lynn (and Theodore and Mighty Dog) on that part, as they said exactly that in this final message in the Owl Point register for 2016:

Reading through these messages eight year later reminded me that we did, in fact, survive that election cycle. While real harm was done to our democracy (and to our public lands) during the four years that followed, we also lived another day to work toward “that more perfect union”. With progress comes setbacks – and 2016 was a doozy.

Nobody knows what more the 2024 election will bring this fall, though we’re off to a very rough start. Being alone with the view on that stellar, crystal-clear day up at Owl Point last week, and reading through the many hopeful, joyful and gracious messages left in the summit register restored a bit of my faith in humanity. In the end, we have so much more in common than the political battles might suggest.

The messages also reminded me to block out the political noise (and now violence, sadly) in this election cycle and sharpen my focus on being an active advocate and steward for trails and public lands. Yes, my vote might make a difference in the fall election, but I know I can make a difference right here in WyEast Country. That’s where I need to keep my head and heart through this turbulent time we’re in.

_____________

The author getting his head straight (once again) at Owl Point on July 11, 2024

In Part 2 of this article I’ll continue with more highlights from the Owl Point Register from 2017 to the present. This was an especially positive era for the Old Vista Ridge trail, despite the dysfunctional national political backdrop… and a global pandemic! More than ever, the trails were our inspiration and refuge, and Old Vista Ridge delivered.

More to come!

Tom Kloster | July 2024

Oneonta Gorge at 125 years… and an uncertain future?

April 27, 2024 / Tom Kloster / 6 Comments

Oneonta Gorge in the 1890s

Oneonta Gorge has been around since the ice age Missoula Floods shaped much of the modern landscape in the Columbia River Gorge 14,000 years ago. Yet, in the past 125 years this exquisite work of nature has endured new threats brought on by the explosion of an especially pernicious invasive species: us!

The past two decades have been especially unkind to Oneonta Gorge, with a massive wave of flip-flop wearing visitors drawn here by the invention of social media, followed by a catastrophic human-caused fire in 2017. This article is a retrospective on how we arrived at this crossroad, and what the future might hold for beautiful Oneonta Gorge.

1900-1940s: Early days at Oneonta…

Railroad tracks had arrived at Oneonta Bluff by the 1880s

First peoples in the Pacific Northwest populated the Columbia River Gorge by the thousands for millennia, and they no doubt knew about and visited places like Oneonta Gorge, just as we do today. But it wasn’t until the transcontinental railroad was connected through the Gorge on the Oregon side in 1882 that white settlement began in earnest. Most of the early focus was on logging the big trees grew on the Gorge slopes and harvesting the seemingly endless salmon runs in the river.

That changed in the 1890s when a new stream of visitors began to follow the rails into the Gorge. Tourists, mostly from Portland, seeking the scenic wonders at each of the train stops along the way. In fact, some of the earliest parks in the Gorge were originally owned and operated by the City of Portland (including Multnomah Falls) to serve the growing interest.

Highway surveyor – possibly Samuel Lancaster, himself –pointing to the site of the future Oneonta Tunnel in the early 1910s

The trickle turned to a tidal wave in the early 1900s, when local entrepreneur Sam Hill and his visionary road designer Samuel Lancaster opened the world-class Columbia River Highway to automobiles. Known today as the Historic Columbia River Highway, the artfully designed new road brought visitors to the Gorge by the thousands by the time it was completed in 1922, with dozens of roadside inns and restaurants springing up to serve the steady stream of motorists.

At Oneonta Gorge, Samuel Lancaster navigated a pinch point where the railroad tracks crowded the base of Oneonta Bluff by blasting a tunnel through the cliff for the new road. From the bridge at the west approach to the new tunnel, visitors also had a stunning view directly into Oneonta Gorge from their automobiles. As with other scenic spots along the road, Lancaster designed a pullout and even engineered a short, winding staircase down to the cool waters of Oneonta Creek that he knew tourists would want to explore.

Motorists emerging from the Oneonta Tunnel in the late 1910s

The east portal to the Oneonta Tunnel in the 1920s shows how the new highway was threaded between the vertical walls of Oneonta Bluff and the railroad – the pinch point that required construction of the tunnel

Curiosity inspired more intrepid visitors to wade into Oneonta Gorge, discovering that at the south end of the 1/3 mile long box canyon you are rewarded with a rare view of beautiful Oneonta Falls. Soon, the word was out, kicking off would be become a century of weekend adventurers making their way through the narrow gorge.

Despite its unique beauty and proximity to the new road, Oneonta Gorge was spared commercial development in the early days of motorists flocking to the new highway, when tourist stops dotted the route at many of the popular scenic spots.

In the 1920s and 30s, most of the forest trails we know today were constructed by the Forest Service and Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) to bring hikers to the series of waterfalls in the upper canyon of Oneonta Creek. These trails offered new views into Oneonta Gorge from above, though wading the creek remained the only way to reach Oneonta Falls.

Visitors at Oneonta Gorge in the early 1900s

As the popularity of the area grew, the first photos from within Oneonta Gorge and of Oneonta Falls begin to appear in postcards, travel guides and tourist folios from this era. The pair that follow from the 1930s track a hiker (perhaps the photographer?) exploring Oneonta Gorge in late summer, when the water levels are typically low. Well into the 1990s, the trip through Oneonta Gorge was much like this, with just a few knee-deep pools to navigate in reaching the falls.

Oneonta Gorge and hiker in the 1930s

Oneonta Falls and hiker in the 1930s

This postcard view (below) from the 1930s is notable in showing boulders and a large log blocking Oneonta Gorge. From my own experiences there, the route was clear of debris on this scale from the mid-1970s until the rockfall that triggered the modern logjam in the late 1990s. What happened to the debris in this photo? They were simply broken up and swept away.

1930s postcard showing boulders and logs in Oneonta Gorge similar to today

Oneonta Gorge was created by a perpetual cycle of erosion, with the stream continually undercutting the vertical basalt walls, then clearing boulders and debris that periodically collapses into the stream. During high runoff events from November through March, Oneonta Creek can become a raging torrent, with enormous hydraulic force that can easily move whole trees and large boulders downstream, eventually breaking them apart into smaller, even more easily transported rock and debris the process (more on that toward the end of this article).

The tunnel at Oneonta Creek was an uncomfortably tight squeeze for passing vehicles from the beginning, so when the railroads moved their tracks away from cliffs of Oneonta Bluff sometime in the early 1940s, ODOT took the opportunity to move the road and bypass the old tunnel.

Oneonta Tunnel in the early 1940s with the relocated railroad line already away from the bluff

The tunnel bypass involved constructing a new bridge over Oneonta Creek (below), immediately adjacent to the old bridge. Both bridges survive today, with the newer bridge serving as the Historic Columbia River Highway route and the original bridge leading pedestrians and cyclists to the restored Oneonta Tunnel.

“New” highway bridge bypassing the Oneonta Tunnel under construction in 1948. The original bridge can be seen on the left

The tunnel bypass was completed in 1948 (below), and both ends of the Oneonta Tunnel were blocked with fill to prevent access. The original highway stub over the old bridge was left in place as a wayside for visitors to Oneonta Gorge.

The completed bypass in the early 1950s with the old tunnel blocked with fill

The Oneonta Tunnel bypass in 1948 was part of a larger effort by the Oregon Highway Division to realign the original Columbia River Highway as a river-level route, completely bypassing whole sections, including the famous loops that climb over Crown Point and Rowena Crest.

Much of this work was completed by the early 1950s, but in 1956 the federal Interstate and Defense Highways Act set construction of today’s Interstate-84 in motion, relegating the original versions of the Columbia River Highway to scenic routes in some areas, and being completely abandoned in others.

That might have been the end of the story for the mothballed Oneonta Tunnel, save for the following provision in the 1986 Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area legislation:

This unique provision was way ahead of its time in our country by recognizing the historic and recreation value of old, “obsolete” roadways. Since then, ODOT has steadily worked toward this bold vision with a string of exceptional restoration projects. As we approach the 40^th anniversary of the scenic area legislation, a completely restored and reconnected historic route from Portland to The Dalles is on track to become a reality.

2003-09: Restoring the Oneonta tunnel and bridge

ODOT renovated the original Oneonta Bridge in the 2003

At Oneonta, the historic highway restoration included renovating the original highway bridge (above) and reopening the Samuel Lancaster’s original tunnel (below) after fifty years of closure. The 1948 tunnel bypass allowed for this segment to be reimagined as a pedestrian route, bringing visitors through the restored tunnel to a dramatic view from the historic bridge into Oneonta Gorge.

The newly excavated Oneonta Tunnel in 2006

Restoration of the east portal to the Oneonta Tunnel in 2006

Restoration of the west portal to the Oneonta Tunnel in 2006

The tunnel restoration included recreating the stonework surrounding both portals and a completely rebuilt, wood tunnel lining (below).

Construction of the wood interior lining in the restored Oneonta Tunnel

The newly restored tunnel was opened to the public in 2009. For hikers, the new route connected a hiking loop between the Oneonta and Horsetail trail systems. For motorists, it was a new place to explore among the traditional stops along the historic highway.

Hikers using the newly restored Oneonta Tunnel in 2009

Family exploring the newly restored Oneonta Tunnel in 2009

The Oneonta Bridge restoration included work at the west abutment, where a small alcove with an ornate bench from the original design was refurbished. This unassuming spot is one of the most delightful features in Samuel Landcaster’s vision for the highway. Knowing that visitors would want to explore, he built a tiny, winding staircase that hugs the cliff as it descends from the alcove to Oneonta Creek (below). The stairway is a fun surprise for visitors who stop, as it is not visible from the road.

Restored alcove and bench at the head of the winding staircase to Oneonta Creek in 2009

Historic winding staircase at Oneonta Creek in 2009

Looking down the historic winding staircase at Oneonta Creek in 2009

When these carefully crafted restoration efforts at Oneonta were finally opened to the public in 2009, few could imagine the impact that social media was about to unleash in the Gorge. Facebook had been founded in 2004, but only began its explosive growth in 2007, doubling from 50 million users to 100 million in 2008. It would reach a staggering 1 billion users by 2012. Instagram soon added to the impact after it was founded in 2010, reaching 10 million users within a year and 1 billion users by 2018.

2010: The logjam + social media era…

The Oneonta logjam in 2011

When you consider the recreation infrastructure in the Gorge – the trails, campground, picnic sites, scenic highway, Vista House and the lodge at Multnomah Falls – are much the same as they were in the 1930s, it’s surprising that the exponential growth in visitors in recent decades hasn’t been more destructive. That said, the arrival of social media, and its ability to concentrate large crowds overnight, impacted the Gorge, and especially Oneonta, like no nothing before.

Compounding the “Instagram-effect” of social media in the years that followed reopening of the tunnel, the pair of van-sized boulders that had collapsed into the lower entrance to Oneonta Gorge in the late 1990s had stacked up enough logs to become a true hazard to cross. In the beginning, the boulders themselves weren’t difficult to navigate, but as log pile continued to grow, crossing the obstacle became a risky venture for social media novices drawn here by nothing more than a viral Instagram selfie.

The Forest Service had posted a hazard warning around 2010, but Oneonta Gorge remained opened to the crowds that were growing exponentially each summer, and the signs went completely unnoticed by the growing horde.

Logjam warning sign in 2011

The growing summer crowds at Oneonta Gorge were beginning to impact the newly restored Oneonta Tunnel, as well. For anyone who loves the Gorge, it was maddening to see vandalism to the pristine wood lining in the tunnel when it started to appear in 2012. The heavy crowds eventually impacted other features, including damage to the railing on the historic, winding staircase (below) and the fragile ecosystem of Oneonta Gorge, itself. It was a classic tragedy of the commons in the making, with the Forest Service seemingly paralyzed from intervening.

Vandalism began to appear in the Oneonta Tunnel by 2013

Damaged staircase railing at Oneonta in 2013

By 2015, the full brunt of social media – now including still more youth-oriented online platforms, like SnapChat and Reddit – was all too apparent at Oneonta Gorge. Summertime traffic came to a standstill on the old highway, with parked cars lining the shoulders in both directions and overflowing into the nearby Horsetail wayside.

Oregon photographer extraordinaire T.J. Thorne (and a friend of the blog!) captured the following images that summer that describe the mayhem in ways words cannot match.

Social media crowds overwhelming Oneonta Gorge in the summer of 2015 (T.J. Thorne)

Crowds at Oneonta Gorge in the summer of 2015 (T.J. Thorne)

Vandalism in the tunnel spiked with the mobs, too, and by 2015 the beautifully restored walls had been almost completely destroyed by the thoughtless members of the summer crowds. Still more discouraging is that the damage was largely wrought by Millennials – a generation supposedly more in touch with environmental awareness, sustainability and mutual respect than any before it.

Vandalism overwhelmed the Oneonta Tunnel by 2015

Heavy vandalism to Oneonta Tunnel in 2015

Tragically, at least one person was killed while crossing the log jam during this unhinged period, and there’s no way to know how many were injured – nor what the environmental price to the unique ecosystem in Oneonta Gorge has been from so many people pouring into this relatively tiny space. Yet, there was still no effort by the Forest Service to limit or manage access… that is, until the Eagle Creek Fire in 2017.

2017: Gorge Fire… and the future?

The Eagle Creek Fire as viewed from the Washington side of the Gorge in September 2017

The Eagle Creek Fire in 2017 reset everything in the Gorge. It was the first major fire since around 1900, yet was also somewhat typical of fires that have always burned in the Gorge. The only thing new about the event was the level of human development and activity that has come to the Gorge since the last big fire, underscored by the fact that it was a human-caused fire set off by a young hiker lighting fireworks on the Eagle Creek Trail.

The Oneonta Creek watershed was hit especially hard by the fire, with much of the upper basin completely burned. The immediate aftermath of the burn was a lot of surface erosion and falling trees killed by the fire. More locally, the fire killed trees and loosened rocks and debris along the rim of Oneonta Gorge, creating an immediate hazard to anyone below.

Aerial view of the fire impact along Oneonta Gorge in late 201. Oneonta Falls can be seen at the far end of the gorge in this view

Aerial view of fire impact to Oneonta Gorge and the larger watershed in the distance in 2017

Over time, the extensive burn upstream has released hundreds of logs into Oneonta Creek, with many more to come. It didn’t take long for winter storms to carry these logs and other debris downstream to Oneonta Gorge, where the logjams have now grown to epic proportions.

Forest Service crew documenting the growing, post-fire logjams in Oneonta Gorge in 2023 (USFS)

Most of the burn was immediately closed to the public after the fire, but the Forest Service has gradually reopened much of the area as trails are cleared and the forest recovery takes hold. An exception is Oneonta Gorge, however, where the agency continues to prohibit public access.

That’s a good thing, and overdue. Nobody knows how long it will take for Oneonta Creek to clear the logjams from Oneonta Gorge, but the hazards they create should at least help the Forest Service take the time to enact a new access policy that limits when and how many people are allowed to enter the gorge.

Oneonta Gorge sign announcing indefinite closure following the 2017 fire

Statesmen Journal outdoor reporter (and another friend of the blog!) Zach Urness recently reported on Forest Service plans to consider reopening Oneonta Gorge later in this decade. According to Zach’s reporting, the agency will consider these options for the future:

1) Unrestricted access

2) Complete closure to access

3) Seasonal public access outside of salmon and steelhead spawning

4) Open or seasonal public access with trigger points to limit use

My hope is that something like the fourth option will be pursued in the interest protecting Oneonta Gorge from being loved to death in the future. The Forest Service planning effort will begin later this year.

The Oneonta Tunnel became an inferno during the 2017 Eagle Creek Fire (USFS)

The fire had a devastating impact on the Oneonta Tunnel, as well. When I saw the above image of the tunnel in flames during the 2017 Eagle Creek Fire, I had mixed emotions: the first was sadness over the loss of this beautifully restored piece of our history, and the second was a sense of opportunity. If the tunnel were restored again, perhaps this time it could be more closely managed to prevent the grotesque scale of vandalism that had defaced it before the fire?

West portal to the Oneonta Tunnel immediately after the 2017 fire (ODOT)

East portal to the Oneonta Tunnel immediately after the 2017 fire (ODOT)

In 2020, ODOT began repairs to the Oneonta Tunnel, once again bringing it back to its original glory with a wood-lined interior. The re-restored tunnel reopened to the public in May 2021.

Oneonta Tunnel cleared and ready for repairs 2020

Re-restored the Oneonta Tunnel in 2024

Visitors exploring the reopened Oneonta Tunnel in 2024

Though the Oneonta Gorge flip-flop crowds are no longer here, vandalism in the newly reopened tunnel continues, albeit at a more manageable pace. While much of the damage before the fire was from names and messages being carved into the soft wood, most of the new vandalism is in the form of spray paint tagging that bedevils our society pretty much everywhere these days. While frustrating, this damage is somewhat easier to repair – assuming ODOT has the capacity and makes it a priority to do so.

When the agency was drawing up plans for the restoring the tunnel a second time, after the fire, I testified to the steering committee that oversees the Historic Columbia River Highway restoration work to consider gating both ends of the tunnel and having State Parks rangers lock it during off-peak hours. I still think this could dramatically reduce vandalism in the tunnel.

Vandalism in the tunnel continues in 2024, despite the Oneonta Gorge closure

Oneonta Tunnel vandalism in 2024

What’s next for Oneonta Gorge? Mostly, a much-needed break from humanity, at least in the near-term. Hopefully, the Forest Service will opt for a long-term plan that places the ecological health of this place at the forefront, but nature has no timeline for clearing out the logs that are making it impassible right now. Over time, the force of water will win out, but that could be decades from now, perhaps longer.

Visitors walking the muddy shoulder to the east portal parking pullout in 2024

I’m also hopeful that ODOT will not only take action to keep pace with vandalism to the tunnel, but also continue to make minor improvements for visitors stopping to explore the tunnel and take in the view of Oneonta Gorge. One that stands out to me when I visits is the surprising lack of even a gravel path to serve the parking pullout near the east tunnel portal (above). A boot path has formed, of course, but I watched several visitors with young kids struggle between the choices of a muddy, narrow boot path and walking adjacent to traffic along the fog line of the eastbound highway lane.

Horsetail-Oneonta wetlands in 2024

If you have followed this blog, you know I’ve posted several articles on Oneonta over the years. This piece surely won’t be the last! For past reads on this magical spot, here are some links:

Let’s Clear the Logjam at Oneonta (2011)

Oneonta Loop Trail (2020)

A Second Chance and New Vision for Oneonta? (2020)

If you’d like to hear a recent interview I had with Zach Urness on the future of Oneonta Gorge, you can listen here:

Explore Oregon Podcast: The ballad of beloved Oneonta Gorge

(…and yes, it’s true –I took my wife of nearly 40 years to wade Oneonta Gorge on our first date, way back in September 1981! She didn’t hold it against me…)

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Tom Kloster | April 2024