Buck Creek on Larch Mountain Hike

Overview

This short hike off Larch Mountain Road takes you down to Buck Creek, a tributary of the Sandy River, through lovely Cascade foothill forest. The area is administered as part of the Bureau of Land Management’s Larch Mountain Environmental Education Site, used mainly by the Corbett School District (and other groups by application) for environmental education. It’s a great jaunt for those with young children, and there are two picnic shelters where you can stop for a leisurely meal. From the pullout, hike into a deep hemlock/Douglas-fir forest, and wind downhill to pass near a clearcut on private timberland. A tributary of Buck Creek issues from a skunk-cabbage spring on your left. Walk under a hemlock that has fallen into the root ball of another downed tree. Then you’ll take a step down at a rotting log. Red huckleberry, sword fern, oxalis, and trillium form the understory. The trail levels and then makes two switchbacks down to Buck Creek. The rooty tread passes under hemlocks, cedars, and alders. There’s no bridge at Buck Creek, so fallen logs will have to do. Once across the creek, you’ll cross a boardwalk across a skunk-cabbage bog and then switchback up to the first picnic shelter with its attendant fire pit. The trail heads up from the right side of the shelter and switchbacks. Then you’re hiking on the level in a quiet forest, soon passing another picnic shelter. Now the trail uses an old vehicle track that passes the prince of these woods, a venerable cedar. When you come to gravel Donahue Road , turn around and return to Buck Creek and the trailhead.

Trail Stats

Photos

Trail photo

The Buck Creek Trail off Larch Mountain Road (not a GPS track) (bobcat) Courtesy: Caltopo/MapBuilder Topo

Trail photo

The first shelter on the Buck Creek Trail (bobcat)

Trail photo

Blooming salmonberry on the Buck Creek Trail (bobcat)

Trail photo

Buck Creek, on Larch Mountain (bobcat)

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