by Paul Gerald, Board Member, Trailkeepers of Oregon

Distance: 3.4 or 5.8 miles – or less!
Elevation gain: 120 to 300 feet

A great way to welcome spring is to get yourself, and your kids if you have them, out for a short, easy walk, or just a day in the park. You might want something that isn’t too challenging, that provides a little variety, and that can easily be cut short if the weather turns sour. If all of that sounds good right now, then a visit to Champoeg State Park, on the banks of the Willamette River, might be in order. It’s a short drive from Portland; its trails are nearly flat and often paved; it offers other activities like disc golf, boating, and a playground; it’s suitable for all levels of interest and ability; and while you’re there you can learn something about Oregon history by walking in the footsteps of some of its earliest European settlers. The Field Guide features two hikes, the Champoeg Loop and the out-and-back to Butteville Store; and don’t even worry about the distances listed, as both of these easy strolls can be as short as you’d like.

One of the nice things about these trails is that they are all as close to flat as you’ll find in the Northwest, and many of them are paved. So if there are still muddy spring conditions elsewhere, most of Champoeg (pronounced like shampoo-y) will leave you with dry feet. In fact, if you’re pushing little ones in strollers, riding a bike, or piloting a wheelchair, you can have a lovely and smooth visit to the woods and river here. The Butteville Store hike, to the longest continually operated store in Oregon (since 1863!), is a park bike path that connects with a road. Only the last quarter mile into Butteville is unpaved, and that’s along a protected shoulder of a two-lane highway.

Hiking in Champoeg isn’t about grand views or being in wilderness. It’s about peaceful strolls among trees along a river – and about stopping to appreciate the little things. March in Champoeg’s woods will be all about wildflowers, especially trillium, that perennial harbinger of spring. So, since you’re not banging out big mileage on a spring conditioner hike, stop to enjoy the flowers, the spider webs, the fish jumping in the river, the birds scurrying in the brush, the deer in the fields early or late in the day. Bring a picnic and grab a table in the day-use area. And if you make it all the way to the Butteville Store, reward yourself with an ice cream and/or a hot drink!

Champoeg isn’t just a hiking destination; it’s a state park with facilities, from a museum to campgrounds and yurts to a boat ramp. And it also offers wide-open spaces so often lacking this time of year, when the Cascades are still snowbound and the coast still cloudy and rainy. Champoeg was once a town, founded in 1850 and wiped out by the Great Willamette River Flood of 1861. The former town site is now a large field (pictured above) where street posts mark the locations of former intersections. Now this field and others offer a chance to get out of the woods and soak up the sunshine if you’re so lucky. There are also designated pet exercise areas in the park and a 19th -century barn that’s worth exploring.

The Willamette River is your constant companion at Champoeg, even when it is just out of sight. Along either of these hikes, you will catch a glimpse of it through the trees, see boats motoring along it, hear the laughter and shouting of swimmers from private docks across the way, and if you’re lucky, maybe see a salmon or a steelhead leap from its waters. In the 19th century, steamboats plied the Willamette from Portland all the way to Eugene, and the recently restored landing at Butteville, very near the store there, was the busiest between Willamette Falls and Salem. But today the river near Champoeg is just a deep, peaceful pool, visible from multiple viewpoints along your hikes. Several side trails on both hikes also lead down to the shore.

Even before there was a town at Champoeg, when French Canadian fur trappers and American farmers were first settling among the open prairies along the river here and trading with the Kalapuya people, a seminal moment in Pacific Northwest history occurred on this site. In 1843, at a time when jurisdiction over the vast Oregon Country was disputed, a group of white men gathered and voted in favor of forming a provisional government for an area that stretched from the Pacific Coast to the Rocky Mountains and from the 49th parallel to the California border. Today an obelisk marks the spot where that vote occurred. (It also honors only the settlers who voted “yes.”) A pavilion nearby was built for the 58th anniversary celebration in 1901, when the monument was unveiled by the last living voter from 1843, François Xavier Matthieu. Nearby you can also find an old cottonwood, now an Oregon Heritage Tree, which appears in photos of the 1901 celebration.

COVID-19 Alert: This article was posted before strict guidelines came into effect regarding use of the outdoors. All Oregon state parks are now closed to the public, and hiking is no longer recommended as an appropriate activity. Stay at home, stay healthy, and find ways to exercise that comply with social distancing guidelines. Champoeg State Park will still be there when the all clear is given!

See the Champoeg State Park Loop Hike and Butteville Store Hike in the Oregon Hikers Field Guide for more details and trailhead information.

by John Sparks, Newsletter Editor, Trailkeepers of Oregon

Distance: 12.9 miles
Elevation gain: 505 feet

The National Park Service’s Fort to Sea Trail, accessible at all times of the year, follows a route that members of Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery might have taken in order to commute to the Pacific Ocean. The trail was finally completed in 2005, just in time for the Lewis and Clark bicentennial celebration. Much of the trail lies within the Lewis and Clark National Historical Park, which includes Sunset Beach State Recreation Site. The trail can be hiked from either end (no fee at Sunset Beach; $10 pass at Fort Clatsop), and a partial loop is possible using the Kwis Kwis Trail on the Fort Clatsop end. Hikers will experience dark woods of Sitka spruce, sedge wetlands, cow pastures in the Clatsop Plains, and views up and down the sweeping 16-mile stretch of beach that extends from the mouth of the Columbia to the Necanicum River.

The Corps of Discovery camped at Fort Clatsop during the winter of 1805-06, bemoaning the boredom, the diet of elk (over 100 killed), and the incessant rain (only 12 rain-free days). Lice and fleas infested the camp and, while relations with the local Chinook were friendly, the Indians drove a “hard bargain” and severely depleted the Corps’ stock of trade goods. The men spent the winter preparing for the long voyage back across the continent, and a detail was sent to the beach – the site is actually in Seaside – to manufacture salt from ocean water. Lewis and Clark themselves reviewed their journals, and Clark meticulously drew detailed maps from his notes. The explorers handed over the fort to Chief Concomly, but the entire palisade of cabins had rotted away by the mid-19th century. The model fort now on display is only 15 years old and was more meticulously planned than previous renditions, the copy carefully constructed from Clark’s sketches.

The central section of the Fort to Sea Trail borders a stretch of wetlands between Clatsop Ridge and the Skipanon River. By February, skunk cabbage is beginning to bloom in the marshlands and lending its distinctive pungent odor to the landscape. Both the bright yellow color of the spathe and the fetid smell attract the small flying rove beetles (family Staphylinidae) who serve as the plant’s pollinators. The beetles can be seen on the tiny flowers that stud the central four-inch spike, or spadix. The skunk cabbage’s bright green floppy leaves are the largest of any Pacific Northwest native. Skunk cabbage is a thermogenic plant, with the flower buds using cellular respiration to create a heating system within the spathe that may be 35 degrees above the surrounding air temperature.

The Skipanon River follows a lazy six-mile course north from Cullaby Lake to enter Youngs Bay at Warrenton. For most of its course, the river is at sea level and only about a mile and a half from the Pacific Ocean, from which it is separated by the low rolling ridges of former sand dunes. The connection between the lake, named after a supposed descendant of a member of the Corps of Discovery who had dalliance with a local Chinook woman, and the river is artificial. Cullaby Lake originally drained into Neacoxie Creek, but shifting sands blocked that route and settlers drained the lake northward. The Skipanon is the westernmost tributary of the Columbia River on the Oregon side. The North Coast Watershed Association has been active in proposing removal of flood gate structures lower on the river that impede upstream progress of spawning coho, cutthroat trout, and lamprey.

Between Highway 101 and Sunset Beach State Recreation Site, the Fort to Sea Trail crosses the rolling pastures of the Clatsop Plains south of the Oregon National Guard’s Camp Rilea. Hikers need to stay on the route here, where kissing gates take you from one field to the next and dairy cows languidly masticate their cuds and stare you down. (The elk are shier and will trot off at your approach.) The trail passes a Presbyterian church near the highway. The current building stands on the site of the first church built west of the Rocky Mountains in 1846. Hikers cross Neacoxie (Sunset) Lake, one of several longitudinal interdune lakes in the plains, on a sturdy footbridge. The landscape here is less than 1,400 years old as the beach slowly migrated 5 ½ miles westward from the former coastline at Astoria. Each low north-south ridge represents the foredunes of a former beach. The rolling sandy expanse has been stabilized over the course of the past 150 years with vegetation planted by white settlers.

See the Fort to Sea Hike in the Oregon Hikers Field Guide for more details and trailhead information.

by John Sparks, Newsletter Editor, Trailkeepers of Oregon

Distance: 8.2 miles one-way
Elevation gain: 1,550 feet

The Clackamas River Trail is a perfect December outing as the area should be snow-free but less visited and the old-growth groves impart a greater majesty in the diffused light. Trailkeepers of Oregon has returned to the trail every year to patch up eroded sections of trail and improve stream crossings. There are several options here: most people prefer the 7.8 mile return trip to Pup Creek Falls from the Fish Creek Trailhead; others may wish to begin at the Indian Henry Trailhead, which requires no fee and takes you directly into the Clackamas Canyon section of the Clackamas Wilderness; still others may prefer this as a through-hike with a car shuttle, a hike-and-bike (leave your bike at Indian Henry and start hiking at Fish Creek), or an undulating 16-mile out-and-back excursion.

The Clackamas River flows through a narrow defile in the Columbia River Basalts here. High cliffs above the opposite bank display successive lava layers. The Clackamas carved this canyon on an 83-mile run from the west slope of Olallie Butte to the Willamette River at Oregon City. The entire area is a catchment of pristine river systems that are part of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers system. In addition to the Clackamas itself, these include the Collawash River, Roaring River, South Fork Roaring River, Fish Creek, and the South Fork Clackamas River.

Bright red waxy caps (Hygrocybe punicea) are winter mushrooms that emerge in small clusters on the forest floor. Initially cone-shaped, they will spread their caps to reveal thick yellowish gills and orange stalks. They are found in forests throughout North America and in northern European pastures. Some sources claim a symbiotic relationship with mosses. Waxy caps are marginally edible and may cause some consumers stomach distress.

The Northwest Waterfall Survey puts Pup Creek Falls at 237 feet. The waterfall spills over a classic basalt lip in two tiers. Trailkeepers of Oregon has improved the quarter-mile access trail to the falls in recent years, allowing for better views of this spectacular waterfall in its verdant amphitheater enhanced by bright mosses and lichens with a dense canopy of conifers. The best times to visit are November to June during the annual rainy season.

Western red-cedar (Thuja plicata) is a feature of river bottoms throughout western Oregon. Farther up the Clackamas, in another section of the Clackamas Wilderness at Big Bottom, you’ll find one of the largest intact groves of old-growth red-cedars in the state. The cedar’s resistance to decay made it the most important wood for West Coast Native Americans in the construction of plank houses and canoes. It was also the first-choice timber source for Euro-American settlers, who rapaciously plundered cedar bottoms of most of the old growth. Slow-growing, it was replaced as the favored plantation conifer by quickly maturing Douglas-fir, an economic choice that defines the timber culture we have today.

Near its southern terminus at the Indian Henry Trailhead, the Clackamas River Trail takes advantage of a weakness in the layers of Columbia River Basalts to negotiate a cliff face under an overhang. Half Cave is a feature of the Clackamas Canyon section of the Clackamas Wilderness, which runs from Indian Henry to The Narrows. The Clackamas Wilderness, five disjunct segments spread 50 miles apart, was designated in 2009 under the Omnibus Public Land Management Act, a law which also created the nearby Roaring River Wilderness, other small wildernesses in Oregon, and added significant acreage to some existing wildernesses in the state. The other sections of the Clackamas Wilderness are the South Fork, Memaloose Lake, Big Bottom, and Sisi Butte.

See the Clackamas River Trail Hike in the Oregon Hikers Field Guide for more details and trailhead information.