Oregon Hikers

On Saturday, I was trying to get up to a higher trailhead, but got stopped by 6" of snow at about 3600'. To try and salvage the day I decided to hike the Hillockburn trail. I know there has been damage at the beginning of this trail, but it has really gotten out of control. I counted no less than 6 trees that have been shot thru, falling on the old road which is the beginning of this trail. To be honest, I'm kind of surprised, since road 45 has had a reasonably strong LEO presence normally - I've even seen days where there were 2 officers patrolling - that is not the norm, but when I head up that road, I have typically seen at least one driving around. I not sure all these trees were downed by shooters, but I know they severely weakened them and probably contributed to them getting destroyed. The whole area is a mess of junk now, with shell casings, shotgun casings, pieces of clay pigeons everywhere. The trail sign was also obliterated by shooters.

After you get past that mess, the trail was in decent condition, and the small campsite down by the river is really nice. It is too bad that the shooters have ruined the trailhead.