Celeste's Breadbox

Yes, we have looking at big, big trees

The night before we set off for another weekend in Yachats, Oregon Field Guide ran a video essay on the Valley of the Giants, a patch of old growth in the Coast Range. It was in one of our hike guides, and on the Siuslaw National Forest map, so we decided to hit it on our way to the coast. Let me just say first of all that William L. Sullivan, the author of our guidebook, gives THE WORST DIRECTIONS EVER! Do not trust anything he writes in his books, use a damned map - preferably one from a federal agency.

Ignoring Sullivan's directions, working off the map and my good sense of directions, we were 100% successful in our navigation of about 40 miles of unmarked logging roads and found the trailhead. This was no small feat (download my GoogleEarth bookmark for the location if you want to see what I mean). Much of the area had been recently (or currently) logged, so the roads were all in pretty good shape, but nothing is marked out there. There are mile markers that the logging operations have put up so they can find their plots, but that's it. The map shows only the one route and none of the dozens of offshoots, so we had to choose the right roads only by the topology.

The trail itself was not long, about a 2-mile loop, across an amazing bridge over the north fork of the Siletz river, and through one of the few remaining areas of old growth (mostly Douglas fir and Western hemlock) in the region. There were a lot of trees down over the trail from our big windstorms this winter, so there was a fair amount of scrambling. When the downed trees are 6+ feet in diameter, it can be a challenge. The "Big Guy" was the second tallest Douglas fir in Oregon until it fell in the 80s, and there's a short trail that goes through a cut in the trunk. I think this was the only trail I've been on in many many years where we didn't meet another human. Not surprising considering how hard it was to get there!

What's really sad to me is that most folks who might want to visit old growth forests will be profoundly depressed by the miles and miles of clearcut you have to drive through to get there. I've lived around here long enough that I guess I'm getting used to it. There are some areas where it's obvious that they're doing "responsible" logging, but most of it was clearcut, and very recently clearcut, which makes it even more depressing. I guess I should be glad that the BLM has protected the Valley of the Giants area, but it's only a relatively small, and isolated patch, hardly enough to sustain the ecosystem. According to the sign at the trailhead it is a nesting spot for endangered spotted owl and marbled murrelet, but we didn't see much wildlife at all. We heard a lot of birds, but most of them were so high in the canopy that we couldn't spot them.

Impressed by our navigational skills, and not wanting to backtrack the 40 miles to get back to a highway to cross the rest of the coast range, we picked a route on the map that would take us the remaining way across the mountains on the logging roads. Everything was going fine until we ran into a locked gate. I was sure we were on the right road, and after exploring another off-shoot of the road that also ended in a gate, I asked Aaron to go back up to what I thought was the right road so we could read the sign on the gate and at least figure out if there was any more info. As we approached we saw a guy in his pickup unlocking the gate. Hooray! I got out with my map and asked him if we were where we thought we where, he confirmed that we were on the right track, and that we were very lucky to have met him there to get through. It would have been another hour plus of backtracking to get to another route. As we drove out through the Cascade Head Experimental Forest we came across another logging operation (responsible logging, this time), which had just finished up for the weekend, and was probably why the gate was locked. We totally lucked out with our timing. A few more miles down some better forest service roads, and we emereged just outside Lincoln City. We had sucessfully traversed the entire Oregon Coast Range on unmarked logging roads!

The next day we decided to take a longer hike in the Cape Perpetua area south of Yachats. It's one of our favorite locations, but we'd never taken any of the long hikes there. We picked the Gwynn Creek loop, about 6.5 miles up a ridge and down the creek. It was about one mile of an uphill climb more than I was ready for, but I really like ridge walks, and it was thoroughly enjoyable. Again it was mostly old growth, though it looked like there had been fire in the area, probably well more than 100 years ago, the biggest trees all had charring on their trunks. And on the coastal side of the ridge the hemlocks had fallen victim to a root fungus, so there were a lot of trees down.

This forest was a little more open, so we were able to spot more birds, and heard even more. Saw a few Wilson's warblers, a Hairy woodpecker (very friendly), Gray jays, a Rufous hummingbird, a Brown creeper, a Raven, and the usual Stellar's jays, crows, Spotted towees, juncos, chickadees and wrens. We heard an owl at the peak of the ridge, probably a Spotted, Barred, or Great Horned, but never did find him. I tired hooting a few times to get him to respond, but he was not cooperating. Also heard a varied thrush that we never spotted. I'd certainly recommend this loop trail to anyone looking for a pretty strenuous half-day hike. It wasn't crowded, I think we ran into three other hikers, but it was still early in the season, though the weather was perfect for us.

On the way back home the next day we stopped at Seal Rocks State Park for some tidepooling (we were blessed with minus tides at a reasonable hour of the day, for once). Seal Rocks is one of my favorite birding spots on the coast. It's a great nesting area for gulls and Pigeon guillemots, and lots of other shorebirds frequent the area as well. This time we saw a solitary Brant goose who seemed to be hanging out with a large flock of Whimbrels (I counted 17), stopping by on their way up to Alaska for the summer. Also spotted what I think was an American pipit, but not 100% sure of the ID. The tidepools were pretty good, but nothing really spectacular, though Aaron did spot a clingfish. Not surprisingly, there was also a group of seals hauled out on the rocks.

All in all, another great trip. I never get tired of going to the coast, and it's never the same twice. Even when you stop at the same places, there's always something new.