From the slopes of Mount Hood to the headwaters of the Willamette, old-growth forest trails in the Oregon Cascades offer some of the best hiking you can imagine. On this webcast, join John Cissel, an old-growth lover and forest researcher who hiked thousands of miles of these trails in the 1990s and published guide-maps and a book describing his favorite hikes in the Mount Hood and Willamette National Forests. Now, he’s published a “3rd edition” of his guide online, with updates and reflections from 25 years of change in the forest and on the trails. Get ready to learn all about the different types of forests you’ll find with his help, and get updates on the work Oregon Wild is doing to protect the last of these incredibly important ecosystems – for the future of our climate and vital biodiversity (and your hiking enjoyment!).
John Cissel worked as a Research Liaison for the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest throughout the 1990s, and served as the site director there in 2002. John spent time as the Oregon Science Coordinator for the BLM, and program director for the Joint Fire Science Program at the National Interagency Fire Center before retiring in 2016.
From 1990-2003, John hiked over 2,000 miles throughout the Cascade Range searching for the finest remaining old forests, and published four guide-maps (1991, 1993, 1996, 1998) and a book (2003) describing the best of those hikes. A newly revised third edition of “50 Old-Growth Hikes in the Willamette National Forest” is now freely available at OldGrowthHIkesPNW.org.
