The Little North Santiam River

Note: This is taken from an entry on my website, which will launch next month. I wish I had a happier sneak preview to share with you, but this place means a lot to me and I am happy to share it with you.

I first hiked the Little North Santiam River Trail in May 1991. It was my first big hike, and at 9 years old, it took a lot of energy for me to get through the day. My stepdad brought along his camera as he so often did, so we have pictures from my first visit to the Little North Santiam River. It would become my favorite place in the world.

I still remember that day well. I was entranced by the huge trees, the waterfalls, the electric green moss, and above all, the deep green water of the Little North Fork. It was the first time of many, and the place in which I fell in love with hiking. We would return often to the area, often to camp. We camped here in the middle of the winter many times, which was always cold but always fun. We would camp at Shady Cove Campground (see photo below) or at one of the many dispersed sites along Cedar Creek, a main tributary of the Little North Fork that flows into the river where the Little North Fork Trail ends.

When I moved back to Illinois at age 16, the Little North Fork canyon, both here and upstream at Opal Creek, was the place I dreamed about the most. We continued camping and hiking in Central Illinois, and I will always insist that Illinois is far more beautiful than people realize (I will write about this at some other point) -but it could not and cannot compare to the beauty I grew up experiencing in Oregon.

I moved back to Oregon for graduate school in 2005, and before long, I was able to return to the Little North Fork canyon. Here is a photo from a hike along the Little North Santiam River Trail from March 2007:

Over time, I came to greatly enjoy taking other people to the Little North Fork Canyon to explore, and to see their reactions to the beauty and peace that overwhelmed the senses when visiting. When I started leading hikes for the Mazamas and Adventurous Young Mazamas in 2009, the Little North Santiam River Trail was my first hike lead. It snowed that day, the first time I’d seen the area in the snow since I was a kid. Here’s a photo of my buddy Karl and I at the bluff above the river, which was always a good rest spot:

I loved visiting the area at all times of the year, but I loved winter and spring the most. I loved hiking this trail in the winter for the solitude, for the rare sun breaks, for the canyon when it was covered in snow, and for the beauty that I was lucky to get to experience, again and again. I loved spring for the wildflowers, the electric green moss that seemed to glow in the sunlight, for the water that flowed everywhere, and for the feeling that life was returning to the area after a long, wet, cold winter. Here is what this hike looked like in the spring, from trips in 2012 and 2016:

As the years went on, I never took the Little North Fork Canyon for granted. I did stop coming to this area multiple times a year to keep from burning out on the area, but I still managed to do this hike once every couple of years. Combine that with hiking Opal Creek almost every year, visiting the Cedar Creek canyon to hike in the winter, and exploring the mountains around, and I still probably came to this area at least three or four times a year. In February 2019, Franziska of Hike Oregon and I hiked to Henline Falls and Three Pools in the snow, two spots that are in very close proximity to the Little North Santiam River Trail.

People generally don’t think that there will ever be a last time to any experience - such thinking is a cause for reflection, but also tends to be pretty morbid. The last time I got to hike the Little North Santiam River Trail was on February 18, 2020. I was suffering from the effects of food poisoning but I decided to tough it out because I loved this hike so much, and because it was a group outing and I thought it would be fun to get there in the winter again. I’d like to tell you that something told me not to miss this one, but really, I just wanted to get outside, food poisoning or no. Here is a photo from that day:

We decided to hike back on the road, making our day a full loop. Along the way back, we passed Three Pools, which I also visited for what may be the last time:

I never figured that I would have to stop coming to this area. It was home.

In July of 2020, as the pandemic raged on and we were all doing what we could to make through another day, another week, another month, a lightning storm ignited a small fire on the slopes above Beachie Creek, deep in the Opal Creek Wilderness. The location of the fire was so remote that firefighters could not safely reach the spot. It was decided to continue monitoring the fire, and people continued to visit this area.

The fire began to grow in late August as the area reached its driest point of the year. Firefighters were still unable to directly attack the fire, though many have questioned whether the Forest Service in the area took the blaze seriously (in my own opinion: I don’t know how it would have even been possible to fight this fire, given how well I know the area - but I wish they would have done something more than they did). Over Labor Day Weekend, an extremely strong wind storm swept through the Cascades, with winds over 70mph. The storm ignited every active fire, sweeping blazes across the Little North Santiam, Santiam, Breitenbush, Clackamas, and McKenzie River canyons, leaving a vast swath of destruction. The towns of Detroit and Mill City were severely damaged, while the town of Blue River along the McKenzie River almost burned to the ground. Five people lost their lives in the Little North Fork Canyon, among them George Atiyeh, the mining heir, activist, and nephew of former Oregon governor Vic Atiyeh who helped save Opal Creek from logging in the 1970s and 1980s. I was lucky enough to meet George once while hiking at Opal Creek, and I told him how much I appreciated everything he had done for the area.

The Little North Santiam River Trail and canyon are still closed nearly five years later due to fire damage. There are plans to reopen the trail as soon as possible, but it will take many lifetimes before the area looks like what it did before the fire. I hope I live long enough to see it.

I feel like a part of me is gone now, though, missing like a phantom limb. People who lived and recreated around Mount Saint Helens before it erupted in 1980 have said the same thing about their own memories, and the difficulty in facing an area that is so dramatically changed, and facing unspeakable destruction. But we will always have our memories. This is how I’ll remember the Little North Santiam River Canyon:

Thanks for reading.