Hi, I'm wondering if anyone has hiked or backpacked along the the Little Badger Creek trail beginning from the west trailhead near Flag Point? The trail description here mentions "more than a dozen campsites" https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DO ... 397624.pdf
I'm wondering what the trail is like as far as difficulty and the availability of large-ish sites near water starting from the west. We backpack with another family and together our group is 4 adults and 4 kids ages 6-9. Trying to decide if it's worth it to start from the West end of the trail because there will be more options for sites near water or just start at the east end as most trail reports describe and camp at Kinzel cabin?
Thanks in advance for any insights!
(We are looking at the area for this weekend due to weather, we were planning to go to Indian Heaven but it's looking pretty cold. We've already backpacked on the more popular Badger Creek trail twice.)
Little Badger Creek Trail from the West?
Re: Little Badger Creek Trail from the West?
There is a lot of elevation loss leaving Flag Point, meaning that no matter where you set up camp, the entire hike out is moderate to steep uphill.
Helispot is a pretty good camping location with a few individual sites (near the junction with School Canyon Trail)... but this late in the year the spring might be questionable. If continuing from there down to Little Badger Creek/Kinzel Cabin, the trail is STEEP and would not be fun on the return ascent for young kids especially. It's the steepest pitch of 'official' trail in MHNF that I know of...
You have two families, so presumably two cars... with some Covid precautions you could make an easy shuttle hike, or nearly just as easy bushwhack loop for the hike described below:
https://www.oregonhikers.org/field_guid ... verse_Hike
I would do the loop as-is with one night at Helispot, or continue down to Kinzel if the spring isn't flowing. No need to go up to Flag Point with this weekend's forecast... there will be no views.
IMHO there is really no advantage to starting from the west... the access road isn't as good, and it adds unnecessary elevation gain/loss for your intended destination.
Helispot is a pretty good camping location with a few individual sites (near the junction with School Canyon Trail)... but this late in the year the spring might be questionable. If continuing from there down to Little Badger Creek/Kinzel Cabin, the trail is STEEP and would not be fun on the return ascent for young kids especially. It's the steepest pitch of 'official' trail in MHNF that I know of...
You have two families, so presumably two cars... with some Covid precautions you could make an easy shuttle hike, or nearly just as easy bushwhack loop for the hike described below:
https://www.oregonhikers.org/field_guid ... verse_Hike
I would do the loop as-is with one night at Helispot, or continue down to Kinzel if the spring isn't flowing. No need to go up to Flag Point with this weekend's forecast... there will be no views.
IMHO there is really no advantage to starting from the west... the access road isn't as good, and it adds unnecessary elevation gain/loss for your intended destination.
instagram: @remyodyssey
Re: Little Badger Creek Trail from the West?
Thank you so much for your response! I realized after posting I probably should have put this in "trail q&a" 
Anyway, I think we will probably just hike in and out from the eastern trailhead, aiming to camp at Kinzel cabin, and maybe just day hike to the helispot on day 2 (we are going Friday-Sunday). I just saw the mention of "more than a dozen campsites" on the forest service trail description and got curious about where they were. But upon closer examination of the map it doesn't look like the western part of the trail even goes along the creek.
Anyway, I think we will probably just hike in and out from the eastern trailhead, aiming to camp at Kinzel cabin, and maybe just day hike to the helispot on day 2 (we are going Friday-Sunday). I just saw the mention of "more than a dozen campsites" on the forest service trail description and got curious about where they were. But upon closer examination of the map it doesn't look like the western part of the trail even goes along the creek.