The Northrup Creek trail system in the Clatsop State Forest was inaugurated in 2005 and links new trails fashioned by the doughty volunteers of Oregon Equestrian Trails with current and former logging roads. While some of the system passes through clearcuts, there are two sections which make this a worthy hiking loop even though it was designed primarily for horses. One is a slope of lush, mature Douglas-fir/hemlock forest that cloaks the west slope of Cow Ridge, and the other is two-mile section along Northrup Creek between the Foster Mainline Road and the trailhead.
I began at the day-use trailhead, which will be gated off from December 1st to May 14th, and first took the short, hiker-only Big Tree Trail. This trail visits the last standing remnants of what used to be a magnificent old growth bottomland along Northrup Creek. I passed two massive moss-cloaked maples, stopped to admire a large Sitka spruce, and looked across the creek to a lonely old-growth cedar. Then there were two impressive grand firs, the second behemoth’s mortal remains now lying prone on the forest floor.
Back at the trailhead, I began the 8 ½ mile Northrup Creek Loop. It begins in a dark Douglas-fir plantation and winds up to a clearcut on the Bovine Mainline. After this, however, the going becomes more pleasant and the trail, which showed no sign of recent horse use, is an obvious and frequent conduit for deer, elk, and coyote. I crossed the Cow Creek Bridge and stopped to pose by a massive cedar stump: at various places along the loop, I came across these huge remains - one that I paced off was 24 feet across!
Then began a lovely stretch in mature Douglas-fir/hemlock forest as I ascended the slope of Cow Ridge. Lobster mushrooms were displaying their Hallowe’en colors on the forest floor and, at one point, the woods were seething with elk as a herd crashed off at my approach. The magic soon ended, however, as I began hiking a section of logging road on Cow Ridge that dropped to a large clearcut above Northrup Creek.
At least there was a view of Saddle Mountain from here. In bright sunlight, I consumed my lunch sandwich to the sometimes ear-splitting crack of a high-powered rifle being fired in a quarry somewhere below. A raven seemed unperturbed by the background noise as it gurgled to itself on a limb above. I descended to the bottom of the hill and crossed the entrance road to resume the trail at Northrup Creek.
Then comes the big obstacle to anyone attempting to hike this loop (as opposed to being mounted on a horse). There’s a fairly deep ford of Northrup Creek – a mossy log appears to offer an alternative, but it is slippery and high above the creek and should only be attempted by experienced slackliners. The only other time I’ve been here, I kept my boots on and inched my way across feeling with my feet in thigh-deep water. I was also carrying my 50-pound Dalmatian, who refused to swim. Well, the Dalmatian is now in her happy hunting ground, and I came more prepared so switched out boots for water shoes and had a trekking pole handy (The stream bed is flat, but the rocks are somewhat slimy). It was a cinch and the water was only knee-deep this time, so I dried off and resumed the trail as it rose up Crawford Ridge.
Soon enough I found myself at a logging landing and began a section of road walking connected to the Foster Mainline. After the trail resumed, I dropped into the maple/alder bottomlands near Northrup Creek. The last 1 ¾ miles or so of this hike takes you past a maple that is at least 15 feet across, a dark grove of Sitka spruce, and the ancient cedar that you see from the Big Tree Trail.
All in all a peaceful trail: from afar, I saw a couple of hunter’s vehicles prowling the clearcuts but neither human nor horse comes here very often in this season.
