Welcome to John Carr Outdoors! 

Please visit the blog and follow. The follow button can be found at the bottom of the page. 

If you are seeing this on Facebook, click the link to visit the blog to see all of the photos.

Salmon-Huckleberry Area

A mid-April morning found me at the 2,000-foot Eagle Creek Trailhead about 30 miles southeast of Portland as the crow flies. In the first mile the Trail lost 500 feet of elevation following an old logging road before reaching the valley floor.

All the signs of early spring were evident with yellow skunk cabbage, red salmonberry, white trillium and the small white blooms of wood sorrel scattered along the way.

In the next mile the Trail entered the wilderness. What a change, from an old clear-cut to an old-growth rainforest.

Some of the cedars and Douglas firs were six to eight feet or more across at their bases. Under the old-growth canopy it was akin to walking through a park with little underbrush save for the ferns.

In three miles there was a nice camping area next to Eagle Creek. I had originally planned to hike three more miles to the end of the trail, but a stream near the camping area was too high to ford safely. (A valuable lesson I learned long ago is that fording creeks is one of the most dangerous activities for solo hikers in wilderness situations.)

Walking down to Eagle Creek, I ate a light snack while deeply enjoying the solitude.

Trillium Lilies

Salmonberry, Echo Azure and Skunk-cabbage

Huge Old-Growth Douglas Firs along the trail