Speed Trail Hike
From Oregon Hikers Field Guide
- Start point: Speed Trailhead
- End Point: Lewis River Ford
- Hike Type: In and out
- Distance: 2.0 miles
- Elevation gain: 680 feet
- High Point: 1,835 feet
- Difficulty: Moderate
- Seasons: Mid-spring into fall
- Family Friendly: Yes
- Backpackable: No
- Crowded: No
Contents |
Description
The Speed Trail #31E is billed as a primitive trail by the Forest Service and is ostensibly a fisherman’s trail that offers quick access to a little-visited section of the Lewis River; it also connects to the much longer Lewis River Trail #31, but this would involve a ford only safely possible in late summer or fall. Nevertheless, this trail offers delights of its own. It is not as steep as you might believe and includes a lovely bench of massive old growth trees as well as forest wildflowers in season. Elk droppings and predator scat are more common on the trail than human footprints. You’ll reach a wide cobbled bar on the Lewis River, where you’re almost guaranteed to have solitude even on a busy summer weekend.
Head down the trail to the right of the signboard, which instructs fishermen to release any bull trout that they catch. After the alder fringe along the highway, you’ll enter a venerable woodland of Douglas-fir, western hemlock, western red-cedar, and Pacific yew. Off to the right, you’ll hear a creek running and see some massive Douglas-firs. Arrive at a bench lushly wooded with red-cedar. The trail reaches a creek bank collapse where two large cedars came crashing down. Take the detour to your right, but be careful along the edge, which is in a constant state of disintegration.
After this creek, you’ll hike along a bench of large old-growth Douglas-firs and cross a second creek in a cathedral-like setting of tall trees where vanilla leaf and inside-out flower form the carpet. Cross a small, trickling skunk-cabbage brook, and then drop steeply down a slope of younger trees in an area that was burned perhaps 60 years ago; burn snags rot among the regenerating forest.
Traverse a bench, and descend again. After crossing a well-established elk track, encounter your first and only switchback of the descent. Then drop down steeply to a creek, and veer right to step across an overflow channel of the Lewis River. From a grassy alder bar that blooms with cow parsnip in the spring, cross a second channel to reach a wide cobbled bar studded with shrubby willow and alder. While tarrying here, explore the river bar for stream side wildflowers, and look for mergansers bobbing in the shallows. In the late summer and early fall, before the onset of the rains, you can ford the Lewis River (use two trekking poles and have good footwear) to join the Lewis River Trail #31 on the opposite bank.
Fees, Regulations, etc.
- $3 toll each way at the Bridge of the Gods
Maps
- Maps: Hike Finder
- Green Trails Maps: Lone Butte, WA #365
- U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service: Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument & Administrative Area
- U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service: Gifford Pinchot National Forest
- Adventure Maps: Hood River, Oregon, Trail Map
- Adventure Maps: 44 Trails Area plus the best of the G.P.N.F.
- National Geographic Trails Illustrated Map: Mount St. Helens - Mt. Adams
Trip Reports
- Search Trip Reports for Speed Trail Hike
Related Discussions / Q&A
- Search Trail Q&A for Speed Trail Hike
Guidebooks that cover this hike
- Day Hiking: South Cascades by Dan A. Nelson & Alan L. Bauer
More Links
Page Contributors
- bobcat (creator)