3 min
Overview
The Nature Conservancy has been working to protect the fields and wetlands around West Eugene’s Willow Creek since 1981. There are currently 405 acres under Conservancy management here, a significant swathe of the ‘wet prairie’ ecosystem, more technically known as the tufted hair-grass (Deschampsia cespitosa) prairie, supposedly one of the rarest habitats in North America. This type of meadow is a squishy bog in winter and spring, drying to hard as rock in summer and fall. Regular prescribed burns help to facilitate plant growth. There are some rare plant species that thrive only in this regime, including Kincaid’s lupine (host to the endangered Fender’s blue butterfly), Bradshaw’s desert parsley, white-topped aster, and Willamette Valley daisy. This biome once occupied much of the Willamette Valley, but the arrival of Euro-American farming practices reduced it to only a few remnant patches. Trails are faint to non-existent here. Keep to the edges of fields, and your best experience will be to visit from about mid-spring into early fall, when the prairies are less boggy. From the parking pullout, walk east a few yards to where you see Willow Creek (thicketed, appropriately, with willows) pass under 18th Avenue. On the east side of Willow Creek, you can take up a mowed track that heads south near the creek. The path itself is dense with purple camas plants, as well as yellow buttercup and white Willamette Valley bitter cress, a pretty sight when all are blooming at the end of April. Bradshaw’s desert parsley (Lomatium bradshawii) also blooms among the camas in mid-spring. This lomatium was considered extinct until 1979, when it was rediscovered by a University of Oregon student. Reseeding programs have been so successful that it was taken off the endangered species list in March 2021! The track can be boggy if it’s a wet spring. You’ll pass through some ash trees and enter a meadow where the main track veers right. You can keep straight along the edge of a Douglas-fir copse, and then turn right to pass along
Trail Stats
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16 m
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Photos
350px-WillowCreekPreserveMap
350px-WillowCreekPreserveMap
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250px-Wild_Iris_Ridge_from_Willow_Creek_Preserve%2C_Eugene
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250px-Bradshaw%27s_desert_parsley_%28Lomatium_bradshawii%29%2C_Willow_Creek_Preserve%2C_Eugene
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250px-Nature_Conservancy_signage%2C_Willow_Creek_Preserve%2C_Eugene
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400px-Great_camas_%28Camassia_leichtlinii%29%2C_Willow_Creek_Preserve%2C_Eugene