Oregon WildBlog

We are back again with a weekly featured hike to inspire your summer adventures and share what our new book, Oregon’s Ancient Forests: A Hiking Guide, has to offer. Today we are returning to the Mt. Hood National Forest to share the Fifteenmile Creek hike. It is a longer and more difficult choice, but this hike features an incredibly diverse array of old-growth trees and is an awesome outing for your day off.

With summer in full swing, kids out of school, and (somewhat) sunny weather, today we are sharing a perfect hike for a fun family outing. This hike at Lost Lake is the fourth featured hike in our summer series to promote outdoor adventures and our new book, Oregon's Ancient Forests: A Hiking Guide. 

Hi, I am Kelby! I just recently joined Oregon Wild as the Ochoco Mountains Outreach and Stewardship Intern for the 2019 summer. Coming from Colorado, I grew up outdoors and have fostered a love for nature which has pushed me to pursue a career in conservation. This passion for conservation work has come from my love of animals and nature that I have had my entire life. 

Cape Perpetua Gwynn Creek Loop - The Hike:
Distance: 6.4 mile loop
Difficulty: Difficult
Elevation Gain: 1,100 feet

First, Some Background:

HB 2020 wasn’t perfect, but the unholy alliance of logging barons, militia groups, and anti-environmental politicians that killed it should be deeply disturbing to all Oregonians.

I haven’t been out hiking this spring and early summer as much as I’d like. (Most of you readers can probably say the same, right?)

I think many have the wrong idea about what it is that I, and the rest of us at Oregon Wild, do day in and day out. While we do get out to enjoy our forests and rivers every chance we get, the day to day work of protecting our wildlands, forests, and wildlife habitat takes place mostly on a keyboard, on conference calls with other advocates, or around a table with other interested parties - not all of whom agree with what we do. 

Today, we are presenting to you Kentucky Falls (no, not the haircut), located west of Eugene in the Siuslaw National Forest in Oregon’s Central Coast Range. This out-and-back hike takes you through ancient Douglas-fir forests to three incredible waterfalls. 

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*Please note that this hike is no longer accessible due to the Beachie Creek Fire of 2020.*

Last week, the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest shared remote camera photos of “Stormy,” a wolverine first documented in the NE Oregon forest for the better part of a decade. According to the post from the forest’s Facebook page, Stormy is “recognizable from his unique gular patch, a lighter-colored patch of fur on the throat and chest.”

Working in rural communities on the Oregon coast, I spend a lot of time with folks who, like myself, are impacted by the logging industry in many ways. Everyone I work with suffers the negative impacts of logging: Polluted water and reduced streamflows, landslides dumping mud into rivers and smothering fish eggs, and the mass poisoning of native flora and fauna from the sky. These rural communities are left with crumbling roads and schools as the industry has decreased their own taxes and automated as much of their operation as they could.