Oregon Hikers

Eric Peterson wrote:Ahh, hiked the short cut a few days ago and noticed the pipe. Must have been feeding
from a spring that was further on up closer to the PCT junction, otherwise I thought
what was the point when Whatum Lake is just right there but didn't know the camp
was above the lake and the structure would need a gravity feed system. Cool stuff
Chase, thanks!

Very cool indeed. We were on that trail last Friday with a small group of Scouts and were wondering the same thing: what's that pipe doing there? Thanks for checking it out.

Yeah Chase, cool stuff! You must love the Oregonian archive as much as I do---isn't it awesome??!!

Great report Chase, thanks. I went up to go find what's left of Camp Chinidere on 11/2 after reading your report. I admire you hikers who can hike many miles, I have bad knees so I try and stay under 15 miles in a day. I cheated and drove up to Wahtum Lake and hiked over from there. I know that isn't much of a hike but I did it on crutches with a broken foot. I found the camp ruins and had a great time seeing them for myself. Thanks again for the history lesson Chase.

Chase, I found this on the official BSA website for the Cascade Pacific Council:

Then as now, camping was considered an essential in providing adventure. Minutes of a meeting July 28, 1916 record a statement by Mr. Cotton, Council President, that he "knew of a good place for the purpose, having many advantages, being up hill and down hill and which could be reached by auto and railroad, by street car or walking. The place was nearly all covered by timber and brush and was altogether a very desirable place for the camp."

Although this camp did not materialize, in 1919 a week end camp was established on Mr. Cotton's berry ranch at the mouth of the Sandy River near Troutdale. Negotiations were begun with the U. S. Forest Service; and in August, 1918 Camp Chinidere was opened on Whatum Lake in the Mt. Hood National Forest. Reports for 1925 indicate that 256 boys camped a total of 604 weeks at Chinidere. Isolated as the camp was, it suffered at the hands of hunters an~ vandals, creating a finance problem for the council. In the summer of 1925 fire destroyed the camp and a search for new facilities ended in 1926 with the acquisition of several hundred acres on the coast. This was to become the beloved Camp Meriwether.

Camp Baldwin came much later. The original camp was tiny, located on Ramsey Creek (the small lake survived until the years when I worked up there, from 1978-84, though it is now in ruins) and the new camp was built in 1962 at the site of an old mill on Wolf Run Creek, to the north (and on the opposite side of Dufur Mill Road).

Tom

Splintercat wrote: Camp Baldwin came much later. The original camp was tiny, located on Ramsey Creek (the small lake survived until the years when I worked up there, from 1978-84, though it is now in ruins) and the new camp was built in 1962 at the site of an old mill on Wolf Run Creek, to the north (and on the opposite side of Dufur Mill Road).
Tom

Tom:

I've been up to the "old" Camp Baldwin twice now. Interesting place - the lake is sort of still there - the dam that made the lake is still there, but is broken, so the water level is way down. But you can see where all the old campsites used to be.

I prefered the Boy Scout camp at Spirit Lake.

More boating and hiking and scenery.

I spent a few weeks there and was a councillor one summer.

Now, it's under water.

retired jerry wrote:Now, it's under water.

And/or underground, eh? Wasn't there something like 300' of deposition in that basin?

I've been up to the "old" Camp Baldwin twice now. Interesting place - the lake is sort of still there - the dam that made the lake is still there, but is broken, so the water level is way down. But you can see where all the old campsites used to be.

Thanks, Rob - that looks pretty much the same as the last time I visited (at least 15 years ago!) The crack in the dam has been there since the mid-80s, so I'm surprised it hasn't come apart. At one point, the USFS was doing a fisheries improvement program on Ramsey Creek, and I have it in my head that they were going to remove the dam, but clearly they haven't. I believe the USFS has done a land swap with the Boy Scouts to put the old camp into federal ownership in exchange for a USFS parcel inside the new camp boundaries... not sure if that ever came to pass.

In my ancient history at Camp Baldwin, I was one of the guys who flagged a trail to an area near the old camp that we named "Vulture Rocks" (after a rather stinky turkey vulture nest in the base of the rocks). If you walk across the old dam, then head around a rock outcrop on the opposite side of the lake, you'll find an obvious trail heading up the next canyon. It leads to the top of Vulture Rocks, and the BSA still runs a rock climbing program there that we started clear back when we first found the rocks and flagged the trail. Haven't been there in years, but it's a really pretty spot. Unlogged at the time, though that may have changed, given the aggressive clear cutting that took place on the Barlow District in the 1980s and 90s.

Nice memories!

-Tom

New material found:

While reading Mount Hood A Guide Compiled by the Workers of the Writers' Program of the Work Projects Administration in the State of Oregon, 1940 I stumbled upon this sentence:

CAMP CHINIDERE is on the shores of beautiful WAHTUM LAKE, 19.5 miles (free public camp grounds; two shelters). This lake, a half mile long and not quite so wide, is situated in a region of luxuriant forest growths. In the camp area, three signboards read: Herman Creek Trail (East); Eagle Creek Trail (West); Lost Lake Trail (South). (86)

[Caps and italics not mine]

I know there was a Wahtum Ranger Station north of the lake (near the Anthill Trail turnoff), but I don't think that counts as a shelter.

It's been a while since this thread has been active but I found out something that might be of interest to anyone reading along. It turns out my great uncle had been employed as caretaker of the camp by the Boy Scout council and was on his way to the lodge for the winter in December 1922 when he either lost his way, experienced a medical event, or simply became exhausted trudging through the fresh snow, and expired along the Herman Creek Trail at about the 8 mile point. My grandfather and a search party out of Cascade Locks and discovered his body a few weeks later in January 1923, according to a story in the Oregonian from January 11, 1923.