By  therese, at 12:46 PM  

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[current music: the punch brothers- it'll happen]

due to the record amount of lower elevation snow this past winter, amanda & i had a difficult time finding a trail that was long enough and not covered in snow to backpack over this past 4th of july weekend. after calling some ranger stations last wednesday & consulting our trusted advisor bill sullivan, we narrowed down our choices to the salmon river trail in the salmon-huckleberry wilderness (lower, central & upper salmon river trails in bill's NW oregon book), the paulina peak area in the deschutes NF & the black canyon wilderness in the ochoco NF. the salmon river emerged as a winner & (after a quick stops at REI & fred meyer in portland) we headed 00out to camp at the trailhead on weds. evening.

the 14.4 mi (28.8 mi roundtrip) trail begins by following the lower salmon river through some very impressive old-growth douglas fir-western hemlock-red cedar forest. it climbs a bit in the middle section, leading to some meadow overlooks that provide nice views of the deep river canyon. amanda & i camped about 10 miles in on the first night at wolf creek, where the mosquitoes were plentiful & the dining exquisitely first-class. we day-hiked to the upper trailhead on friday, passing through some nice rhododendron patches, returned to our basecamp for lunch (in the tent, due to the mosquitoes) & then made our way back to a crowded goat creek campsite. on saturday, we finished the roundtrip by mid-afternoon & since we were feeling very much in the vacationing mood, we treated ourselves to some amazingly good pizza in sandy, a visit to the goodwill, & then to top off our complete indulgence, we headed out to the bagby hot springs.

i hadn't been to the bagby hot springs since i was a trout lake toughie (ok ok, that's dwelle's nickname) but what i remembered most were the cedar log tubs & the beautiful 1.5 mile hike in. wow, there could not have been anything better for a&i to do after the salmon river backpack then to go soak at the hot springs! the crowds weren't as bad as expected; the hike in was like walking through the set of the ewok village; and the water took away any soreness in our muscles that we might have developed over the past 2 1/2 days. in fact, the hot springs were so relaxing that we slept overnight off of an old logging road & returned to the hot springs again on sunday morning!

ah! such a good trip!

pictures from the salmon river:

Labels: backpacking, salmon river