Oregon Hikers

Last Friday, as I was exploring on the Larch Mt (to Multnomah Falls) Trail, I noticed quite a few old campsites with partially decaying picnic tables and rusty fire rings, and even an old water post. Was this a campground at some point in the far past? And has anyone noticed how quiet the forest is? No bird sounds. Thanks!

GrizzlyMan, welcome to the forum. Trail Advocate historical maps page is helpful for these things. For example http://mapse.trailadvocate.org/District ... strict.jpg (WARNING, huge image) shows a "CAMP A Guard Station" south of Sherrard Point, and a "Spring Camp Shelter" north of it. I did not look through all the maps so there may be more.

See page 5 of this 1920s Mt Hood Trail Guide for the Larch Mtn Hike description -
https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bib ... 4#/summary

jime wrote: ↑

August 16th, 2020, 10:04 am

See page 5 of this 1920s Mt Hood Trail Guide for the Larch Mtn Hike description -
https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bib ... 4#/summary

Cool 1951 photo - crazy to see how open the view was up there 60 years ago compared to now.

But thanks for posting that Library of Congress link, that brochure was awesome! I was happy to see that in the tree species descriptions at the end it confirmed my guess that Larch Mtn is so named because of all the noble fir at the summit, which was referred to as "Oregon Larch" back in the day because noble fir wood was low quality but Larch wood was desirable.

You might be interested in this
https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/larch-mountain.html

It's fun to go to the multco library website and search the old newspaper articles like those. I've read some of the full articles that are quoted. Surprising how often and how early on vandalism enters into them (well, maybe not).