The trail took us over the bridge at Plenty Big Creek. The Coast Range is on the cusp of spring, and with few flowers out, lichen, mosses, and fungi were the order of the day. I was surprised to notice a few noble firs in the forest mix, beginning about the 1400-foot level above Step Creek. There are dense, moss-draped vine maple thickets here, with a couple of trees down on the trail as well as a fair amount of debris. Colorful bogs of skunk cabbage were on display. Burned stumps with springboard platforms attested to old growth logging before the Tillamook Burns. Much of the area was marked with timber sale signs, so one suspects this trail may be off-limits in the near future.
We left the Step Creek Trail to take a shortcut up to Rice Road. A 400-yard cable had been spooled out along the road for some reason. The constant blasts of a logger's whistle signaled much activity on the slope above. We got to the junction with Round Top Road, and inspected the closure post on the Gales Creek Trail.
We then descended that trail back to where it crosses the abandoned Port of Tillamook Bay Railroad. East of the trail is private property, but west of the trail the line runs on state land, and we found that someone has been keeping the rail tie section between the tracks clear. We walked as far as a small rock slide and turned back.
After crossing the Nehalem again, we took the Triple C Trail, a short loop named after the Civilian Conservation Corps, which once had a base camp there. The best part of the Triple C runs along the Nehalem, where early flowers like trillium, violet, and toothwort were beginning to bloom. By now, after a few short sprinkles, blue skies had broken out above.
