1st backpacking w/ 6-year-old; Conditions at Salmon River, Veda Lake, Badger Creek, Pamelia Lake?

[mitchystan]

Hi folks! I have a lot of backpacking experience from many years ago, and would like to introduce the experience to my 6-year-old. This would be their first time backpacking, although they have camped in the past, and they can handle a 4-ish mile hike with mild elevation gain.

I'm not very familiar with how the fires over recent years have affected the typical options in the Portland area for someone's first, easy backpacking trip. Here are some options I'm currently considering. Please let me know if any of these would be a no-go due to burned areas or active fires:

• Salmon River Trail
• Veda Lake
• Badger Creek - maybe not a great option because I read there are lots of horses
• Pamelia Lake - this is an old favorite of mine. I know I would need to navigate the permit system.

A few that I had in mind, but I see are a no-go due to fires/burns:

• Lewis River trail, active fires: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=30984&p=226835&hil ... er#p226835
• Memaloose Lake, too much burn area: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=30985&p=226848&hili ... ke#p226848

In Ye Olden Days, the NW Large Fire Map was the go-to resource to check before going backpacking. Is that still the case, or do y'all now have a better resource you tend to check? I also plan to check the PM2.5 layer on Windy.com.

Thanks for your help!

[drm]

I can only speak to Badger Creek of the four listed. Although the equestrian organization helps with trail maintenance, I go there multiple times every year, and have only seen horses on the trail once or twice. I think it is a good choice because there are many trailside/creekside camps, starting very close to the trailhead, and continuing frequently up to about 3.5 miles up. After that there is a break for a while before you reach more campsites. So if you max out on how far you go very quickly, there will be a camp. If you want to go a little further, there will be a camp. That's also helpful if some are taken. It's also an easy trail, a very mild uphill.

Lewis River could be good from the lower end as well. The fires aren't that close and they will probably be history by later this week anyway. As with Badger Creek, most of the camps are lower down, within the first 5 miles or so. But it's two miles till the first group of camps.

[teachpdx]

Salmon River is a good choice if you want to keep the mileage under 2.5 each way. After that the trail climbs away from the river and campsites for awhile. It’s my go-to when I take friends for their first backpacking trip.

[Pick-a-Pika]

Another vote here for the Salmon River. I took my son out there overnight when he was under 10, and groups of kid day hikers. It worked well.

[drm]

And not Badger Creek - it is still closed from the Boulder Lake Fire - pretty much all of Badger Creek Wilderness, including Little Badger and most of the Divide Trail.