6.1 hr
Overview
The Pacific Crest Trail's northern terminus in Oregon used to be at the Forest Service's Herman Creek Work Center, and this backpacking option to Wahtum Lake on Waucoma Ridge begins at the nearby Herman Creek Trailhead. You'll use a short stretch of the Herman Creek Trail #406 and then the Herman Bridge Trail #406E to connect to the Pacific Crest Trail. From there, you're on your way up to the Benson Plateau, this long ascent followed by a lope along the Benson-Chinidere Mountain ridge before the descent to lovely Wahtum Lake, where you may find overnighters who arrived via other routes, such as the Eagle Creek and Gorton Creek Trails. You'll skirt areas savagely burned by the 2017 Eagle Creek Fire but never find yourself in the canopy fire zone for extended stretches. An option for the return is to take the Herman Creek Trail back to the trailhead (See the Wahtum Lake via Herman Creek Hike). The path drops from the Herman Creek Trailhead but then switchbacks up twice before traversing. There are two more switchbacks in shady big-leaf maple, hemlock, Douglas-fir woods. Reach the powerline corridor and cross it, heading up to the right to reenter the woods. Here, you'll begin to see the effects of the 2017 Eagle Creek Fire, with the understory burned away but slowly recovering and the conifer canopy mostly intact. The trail winds through an area of large, moss-covered boulders and then passes an old forest track leading off the left. (This track drops down to Herman Creek Road.) Pass around the nose of a ridge, switchback twice, and traverse up to the junction with the Herman Bridge Trail #406E, 0.6 miles from the trailhead. Bear right here, and descend the slope. At a talus opening, you'll get a view up to Nick Eaton Ridge. After you bend left to follow an old road bed, you'll hike along a forested rim. Switchback down to the Herman Creek Bridge, a large steel truss bridge, and get views up and down Herman Creek as it runs past a verge of alders, maples, and cedars. After the bridge, the trail becomes the no
Trail Stats
0.1 km
1831 m
1316 m
0 m
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Photos
400px-WahtumLakeViaPCTMap
400px-WahtumLakeViaPCTMap
160px-Pacific_Crest_Trail_below_Chinidere_Mountain
160px-Pacific_Crest_Trail_below_Chinidere_Mountain
250px-Pacific_Crest_Trail%2C_Benson_Plateau
250px-Pacific_Crest_Trail%2C_Benson_Plateau
250px-PCTBensonWay2
250px-PCTBensonWay2
250px-View_to_Nick_Eaton_Ridge%2C_Pacific_Crest_Trail
250px-View_to_Nick_Eaton_Ridge%2C_Pacific_Crest_Trail
400px-WahtumRuckel3
400px-WahtumRuckel3