Cascadia Hiking

The Brice Creek Trail and Upper Trestle Falls Trail are absolutely essential hiking if you're from Eugene or just in the area for a few days.  Trailhead Directions There are serval access points to the Brice Creek Trail and your round-trip hike can range anywhere from approximately 3 to 10 miles. The western most trailhead lies shortly after entering Umpqua National Forest, there is only a small sign so watch out for it closely. I started my hike at the Cedar Creek trailhead, which is also where Cedar Creek Campground is. The campground looked pretty awesome, but was still gated off because of the winter closure.   Brice Creek Falls Once again there was a trail closed sign because of a landslide, but the Forest Service( FS) posts those signs as way to cover themselves if you get hurt. I didn't realize until after the hike how impressive the landslide really was, one of the FS employees told me they are still looking for a bridge that was swept away.  ...

The Eugene to Pacific Crest Trail has long been a dream of hikers in Cascadia, especially those in Eugene. Trail work was done on it until 1994 and the trail was 'offically' open despite being only approximately 90% done.  Trailhead Info I wanted to go on an epic snowshoeing/hiking trip before all the snow melted and I start school. After hours of staring at books and maps I noticed a nearly unbroken string of trails that connected Westfir, Oregon to Lookout Point Reservoir. After making a call to the Middle Fork Ranger Station about trail conditions I was somewhat confident we could make the approximately 18.5 miles from 8am to 6pm, I was wrong.  The Alpine Trail was the first leg of the hike. It started off with an unrelenting climb of about 900 feet over a mile. After the climb the trail nearly flattens and walks along side a Forest Service nursery. The flat is somewhat strange given the predominate tree is not the Douglas Fir.  Don't becom...

The John Day Fossil Beds National Monument is often overlooked by those looking to enjoy Oregon's natural beauty. The Fossil Beds receive approximately 110,000 visitors a year, most of those in the summer. In comparison to Crater Lake which receives around half a million visitors a year.  I had been craving another trip to Eastern Oregon after our last camping trip on the Crooked River , so I pulled my maps out and started looking for places I had never been. It was settled when I asked my girlfriend if she had ever been to the John Day Fossil Beds. I immediately found a picture of the Painted Hills and showed her; she couldn't wait to go. We decided on camping for one night and then staying at a lodge of some kind the second night seeing that snow was on the way. Camping options in winter near the Fossil Beds can be unpredictable being that most are between 4,500-5,500 feet. After searching for lower elevation camping options I came across  Clyde Holliday State  Re...

When John and I first moved in together we brainstormed on ways to compost in a second floor apartment with virtually no backyard, and a shared back patio. Our initial idea was to create some kind of compost bin to be used inside, since the weather we have been having lately has been less than forgiving. We read a few blogs on keeping compost in your apartment; some that involved drilling holes in tupperware, some that involved the use of a smaller version of the large conventionally know "compost bin". Reading these left us somewhat confused, and a little apprehensive about making our apartment smell like garbage. Thus we tabled the issue and decided we would wait until the summer when the weather was more stable to get going on our worm adventure. Two weeks ago John and I went to the Lane County Home and Garden Show in Eugene at the fairgrounds. We went to search for some planter boxes to house some seedlings, and ended up finding the solution to our composting dilemma. W...

Beautiful doesn't even begin to describe the Fall Creek National Recreation Trail. . . Like a lot of people who grew up in Springfield, I spent many great days out on Fall Creek Reservoir  when I should have been in class. After moving away from Springfield I had almost forgot about Fall Creek National Recreation Trail (NRT) until I came across it in one of my hiking books. I immediately started thinking about who could drop me off at the upper trailhead and who could get me at the lower. Thankfully I have an awesome girlfriend and an awesome sister who helped me out with that. The only thing left to do was to get to the upper trailhead.  Located approximately 40 miles from Eugene the Fall Creek NRT offers a great opportunity to walk through some of the best native or 'old growth' forests left in Oregon.  I was somewhat concerned about snow or fallen trees on Forest Road (FR) 18 near the upper trailhead, but neither of those were an issue. To reach the...