Backpacker Magazine – October 1999

Oregon's Tillamook Forest: A Craggy Option

Everyone's heard of the Cascades, but no one seems to know about Tillamook State Forest.

by: Jeremy Boyer

Tags:
• Oregon
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• Adventures
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• Weekends
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Like any self-respecting Oregonian, I wear flannel, visit the local espresso shop three times a day, and bike to work. But where I break rank is in my choice of hiking destinations. While everyone else seems to head east to the Cascades, I drive west to Tillamook State Forest. There, I get everything a Northwest hiker craves: craggy peaks, deep forests, elk in the meadows, and volcanoes on the horizon. Plus, Tillamook's trails remain snow-free long after Cascade trails are closed for the season.

Like a backcountry phoenix (the mythical bird, not the city), Tillamook State Forest is a wilderness reborn from the ashes of several catastrophic fires earlier this century. Beginning in the 1950s, the state began a concerted effort to replant the charred mountainsides, and today you'll find a thick, rich, nearly continuous canopy of Douglas fir, red alder, and bigleaf maple. The rivers and streams, always wild and undammed, support some of the healthiest salmon and steelhead runs in the Northwest.

The best introduction for Tillamook newcomers are the Elk and Kings Mountain Trails, which can be combined into a satisfying trek. The views from Elk Mountain's summit rock gardens are sweeping and varied. In one direction the dark, forested ridges are reminiscent of Virginia's hazy Blue Ridge Mountains; in the other direction, the mountains resemble Washington's Olympics.

Experienced backpackers with good navigation skills should take advantage of Tillamook's accessible terrain and venture off-trail. Well-defined elk paths and remnants of old roadbeds run along the top of nearly every ridge in the Sawtooth Ridge area, providing relatively easy hiking. Some worthy bushwacking destinations to aim for include: the jumbled peaks and ridges of Sawtooth, Cedar Butte, upper Company Creek, Mutt Peak, and Feldshaw Ridge.

As I've discovered while leading numerous off-trail outings for the local Sierra Club, you'll have your run of this rugged place.

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