I was looking to do another forest road exploration, but I wanted something easy, a route that was short, easy to navigate, and not likely to feature any locked gates. This little trip filled the bill; just fifteen and a half miles off pavement, with just two or three critical junctions, all of which had clear signage. To get there I went east on US 20 through Lebanon and Sweet Home, past Cascadia and Mountain House, all the way to the turnoff for the House Rock Campground. This put me onto Latiwi Creek Road, also known as Forest Road 2044. Almost immediately I came to the access road for the campground. Ignoring that, I stayed on 2044 and followed it down into the forest.
Soon the road crossed a couple of narrow bridges and started climbing up out of the South Santiam River canyon, winding its way southeastward. The gravel was mostly smooth but had some pot holes and washboarding. The road climbed steadily and occasionally steeply. There were a number of places with views that would have been lovely if a person could have seen them through the smoke.
Forest Road 2044, ends at a T-junction with Forest Road 1509. I turned left and continued eastward and upward. The signage is good here. You can’t read it in this photo, but that little brown sign in the lower right points to 2044, the road I came up. It was pretty smoky at the junction and the smell of burning wood was in the air.
It’s easy to follow 1509. There are some little offshoot roads all along it, but it’s always easy to see that they are not the main road. There are three major intersections, where some fairly good looking gravel roads lead south or southeast. The junctions had good signage (see below) and all I had to do was stick to 1509.
One of the nicer parts of 1509 is where it passes through an area of really old trees. It’s not a large tract, just a few acres alongside the road that apparently have never been logged. I decided to stop and have my lunch there. I turned onto a smaller road called Road 30 and found a wide spot to park, then walked down a ways into an old growth swale to where I could find a log to sit on.
I enjoyed the sheer height of the old trees, but I also liked seeing trees of many ages. Most of the trees in Oregon forests were born in commercial nurseries and planted as seedlings after a clear cut, thus forming large tracts of trees of identical age and size. Here in this little spot, you see trees that just happened to sprout where a seed cone fell in a year when conditions happened to be right. There are trees of all ages– two foot high tots to fifteen foot teenagers to towering elders. And the dead merely lie where they have fallen.
Eventually Road 1509 ends at another T-junction. To the right you can take Road 1598 to continue east, but I was ready to head home, so I turned left onto Forest Road 15, a paved route that leads back to U.S. 20.
thank you so much for sharing your little trips..i would so love to have the time and finances to explore!! Love the old growth forest…so lovely!! and your words are well written and let us “see” the way!!