Oregon Hikers

A little surprised nobody posted this, so I will.
Last week (I think, maybe two weeks ago, whatever) Willamette Week's cover story was "The Salmonberry Trail doesn’t exist yet. We hiked it anyway."
The author describes himself as a casual hiker, and goes on to tell of his offtrail journey. I bet the locals cringed when they found out. This story probably increased traffic on that route tenfold. Or maybe not. Hard to guess, but if 0.1% of readers decided to follow his footsteps, that's probably a huge difference. I'm not too upset about it, but I think it was slightly irresponsible, along the lines of the Oregonians infamous "go hike Munra Point" debacle.

http://www.wweek.com/outdoors/2016/06/0 ... bike-path/

Doesn't seem irresponsible to me. The article talks about the rail line's history and how a lot of people would like it to be a real trail someday. The headline ("we hiked it anyway") is the dumbest part.

I would love to see these rail lines turned into trails. The one from Banks to Vernonia is really awesome. To have one go all the way to through the coast range would just be fantastic.

A lot of people do the Salmonberry "trail". I was there several years ago. It's in books like Sullivan's.

Nice when there's snow higher up

Until this one becomes an official trail I'd prefer it not be published. I agree with Chip this was irresponsible to publish about and contribute to increased use. The "trail" itself is actually private property on a destroyed rail track that is fraught with risk of injury, I'm actually impressed the owner actually allows public access. Its going to be many many years before this becomes an official properly built trail and until a proper trail is made its just a matter of time until someone falls off a trestle or gets hit with a fallen rock in a tunnel and the trail is closed to the public by the property owner.

the increasing graffiti is worth mentioning here too gives me the impression of the potential of more serious criminal acts in such a remote location.

Koda wrote:Until this one becomes an official trail I'd prefer it not be published. I agree with Chip this was irresponsible to publish about and contribute to increased use. The "trail" itself is actually private property on a destroyed rail track that is fraught with risk of injury, I'm actually impressed the owner actually allows public access. Its going to be many many years before this becomes an official properly built trail and until a proper trail is made its just a matter of time until someone falls off a trestle or gets hit with a fallen rock in a tunnel and the trail is closed to the public by the property owner.

the increasing graffiti is worth mentioning here too gives me the impression of the potential of more serious criminal acts in such a remote location.

There's graffiti everywhere in the woods - I noticed a few weeks ago that a big rock on the Mirror Lake trail is tagged - and graffiti isn't necessarily tied in or connected to "more serious criminal acts." That's just not true and saying so presupposes that other criminal acts are committed by grafitti artists on trails. And bringing it up is just a little boogey-manish - what criminal acts are you referring to? Drinking beer? Smoking some pot? Going off trail? Randomly attacking other hikers in a fit of bath-salt fueled rage? I don't remember the last time I heard of a hiker encountering some kind of criminality on a hike that threatened them.

That's not a defense of graffiti, it's just a case against hyperbole.

If the trail is on private property, that doesn't make it any more or less safe than a trail on public property. You're right in suggesting that the danger of liability (property owner could get sued) is a concern, but hiking has inherent dangers no matter what the hiker's experience level is. A falling rock doesn't care if you're a fully equipped badass with 50 years experience in the woods, or a novice flip-flop wearing bozo who stopped in an unfortunate place to drink the last of their beer. It sounds to me like your concern is more with "increased use" than it is with safety, or else you'd be arguing for the complete closure of the trail, not lamenting the increase in publicity and use.

JaphyRyder wrote:

Koda wrote:Until this one becomes an official trail I'd prefer it not be published. I agree with Chip this was irresponsible to publish about and contribute to increased use. The "trail" itself is actually private property on a destroyed rail track that is fraught with risk of injury, I'm actually impressed the owner actually allows public access. Its going to be many many years before this becomes an official properly built trail and until a proper trail is made its just a matter of time until someone falls off a trestle or gets hit with a fallen rock in a tunnel and the trail is closed to the public by the property owner.

the increasing graffiti is worth mentioning here too gives me the impression of the potential of more serious criminal acts in such a remote location.

There's graffiti everywhere in the woods - I noticed a few weeks ago that a big rock on the Mirror Lake trail is tagged - and graffiti isn't necessarily tied in or connected to "more serious criminal acts." That's just not true and saying so presupposes that other criminal acts are committed by grafitti artists on trails. And bringing it up is just a little boogey-manish - what criminal acts are you referring to? Drinking beer? Smoking some pot? Going off trail? Randomly attacking other hikers in a fit of bath-salt fueled rage? I don't remember the last time I heard of a hiker encountering some kind of criminality on a hike that threatened them.

That's not a defense of graffiti, it's just a case against hyperbole.

If the trail is on private property, that doesn't make it any more or less safe than a trail on public property. You're right in suggesting that the danger of liability (property owner could get sued) is a concern, but hiking has inherent dangers no matter what the hiker's experience level is. A falling rock doesn't care if you're a fully equipped badass with 50 years experience in the woods, or a novice flip-flop wearing bozo who stopped in an unfortunate place to drink the last of their beer. It sounds to me like your concern is more with "increased use" than it is with safety, or else you'd be arguing for the complete closure of the trail, not lamenting the increase in publicity and use.

graffiti is a crime, pretty simple if your doing it your a criminal. I cant imagine encountering someone in the act of a crime in a remote location might go well... depending on the attitude of the criminal I suppose but what kind of person would "tag" something? Its obvious you've never hiked this trail or you'd know about degrading conditions of the structures that Im talking about.

The gloves are off now.

The media is going to publish anything/everything just to boost sales/clicks/ratings regardless of the feelings of long time Oregonians/locals, those that actually want to have a few places of solitude. If it results in a 0.0000000000000000001% + change in attention = publish it, exploit, "share," then move onto another place, repeat, then fast forward about 10 years: "hey man it used to be _____ here!?"

"The media is going to publish anything/everything just to boost sales/clicks/ratings"

I'm glad I'm not in the media - so many competing against each other - many are going out of business

Okay, let's talk about Trump...

Without really meaning to, I now realize I hiked the Willamette Week section of the RR last weekend. When I went back and read the story again, I realized I did that segment, although I did it in the more sensible direction. Anyway, wanted to comment on the graffiti discussion above. It was so much worse than I expected. I was surprised that it would be a problem even miles away from the roads. Everything is covered in crappy unimaginative scrawls. There's absolutely nothing artistic or creative about most of it, it's just the kind of tagging you see on utility poles in the city. Disgusting. And yeah, it did make me feel just a bit unsafe, although the evidence of off-road vehicles and the sound of shooting gave the place a bit of a Deliverance vibe as well. I liked the skull below though. He used a single rock as his canvas, rather than vandalizing something of historic significance. And it shows a little creativity and technique. I don't mind seeing things like this in moderation.