Camping season

Drift Creek Camp offers winter adventures for seasoned hikers

 Story & photos by Michael Edwards

For the TODAY

Not far from Lincoln City, North Creek’s proximity to the ocean, rainfall totals that would send Noah to the woodshed, cobble-strewn creek bed and woody debris gifted by the forest have combined to provide ideal habitat for generations of salmon.

For thousands of years, native people harvested salmon and constructed a complex culture that placed the great fish at its center. Ravens and bears fed on salmon carcasses and the fishes’ decomposition transferred nitrogen to the trees. In 1958, this cycle of life and death was interrupted by the construction of Forest Road 1790. 

Forest Road 1790 enabled the timber production that drove the development of the Oregon Coast and beyond, but it also changed the ecology of North Creek, blocking off 16 miles of prime salmon spawning habitat. To prevent the road from washing out and to provide for fish passage, the Forest Service constructed a culvert. The culvert allowed water to flow, but in winter, North Creek swelled and the water squeezed into the narrow passage and shot out the other side with the velocity of a firehose. The annual deluge blasted away the logs, cobble and boulders that are the raw materials for salmon spawning grounds and juvenile fish habitat. If salmon were ever to return to the 16 miles of creek north of Forest Road 1790, the culvert would have to be replaced and upgraded. 

In 2015 The MidCoast Watersheds Council began writing and submitting grants to raise funds for a larger culvert for North Creek. Between 2015 and 2019 non-profit organizations like Trout Unlimited and the Native Fish Society collaborated with the Watershed Council and government agencies to fund and build a $900,000 culvert at North Creek. The 15-foot-tall, fifty-foot-wide passage was completed in 2019 and it is an example of the collaborative work needed to restore degraded habitat in the Siuslaw National Forest.

Visitors to the culvert and to the nearby Drift Creek Camp enter into a Late Successional Reserve or LSR. The LSR’s forest managers leave old trees standing while previously logged and now overcrowded groves are thinned. Forest thinning allows sunlight to reach the ground which helps enhance native plant and fungal diversity. The initial rationale behind the LSR designation was to provide safe habitat for threatened spotted owls, marbled murrelets and salmon. Since being identified as a critical wildlife habitat, the Siuslaw National Forest has also been recognized by forest scientists as an exceptional carbon sink. In the fight to stall and reverse climate change, the Siuslaw sits at the tip of the spear.                

The visible part of the Siuslaw National Forest sits atop an elaborate subterranean network of mycelium that fruits most abundantly in the fall and spring. Along the Hillside Trail, cartoonish looking reishi mushrooms sprout from the trunk of a hemlock coated in frog’s pelt lichen. In China, legend has it that the reishi, the “mushroom of immortality” raises the dead. In North America reishis aren't asked to do such heavy lifting, however, reishi teas are said to boost immunity. A bolete sprouts from the trail, its enormous cap dwarfs my Gerber tool. Russula mushrooms coated in a glowing red orange parasitic mold break through the forest duff. These “lobsters” are considered delicacies, but only if the mold infests the right kind of mushroom. Finally, I trip over a decaying alder bursting with a cluster of scaly pholiota mushrooms. In my guide book, under the heading “Edibility” the author writes:

“Some people eat it regularly, but others have suffered severe stomach upsets and old specimens are often rancid tasting.”  

To ensure safety, people interested in picking and eating wild mushrooms are advised to harvest with an expert. Mushrooms Demystified helps this author identify fungi but the book also makes it clear how complex mushroom identification can be. With my limited knowledge, at least for now, my mushroom hunting is limited to photographs. Organizations like the Oregon Mycological Society provide online resources, classes and field trips for budding mycologists.

Directions

From Highway 101 just south of Milepost 119, turn left onto Drift Creek Road. When you arrive at the ‘T” follow it to the right and then veer left onto Drift Creek Camp Road. Follow the road until you get to the brown sign that gives directions to Drift Creek Falls, Highway 18 and Drift Creek Camp. Take a right towards Drift Creek Camp. A half mile past the big culvert is the Drift Creek Camp Siuslaw National Forest sign. A stone’s throw from there is a dirt parking area near Drift Creek. When you walk over the bridge, immediately to your right, there is a sign for the Creekside Trail and a bit further up the road, to your left, is the Inspiration Point Trail. Forest visitors are welcome to crisscross the impressive grounds of the Mennonite Camp. Finally, there is an excellent unmarked loop trail beginning at the culvert that runs along North Creek.