Revision as of 22:03, 2 August 2021

Replica wagon in the Oregon Trail ruts at Flagstaff Hill (bobcat)

View to the Elkhorns from Flagstaff Hill (bobcat)

Desert paintbrush (Castilleja chromosa), Eagle Valley Railroad Loop (bobcat)

The stamp mill from above, Oregon Trail Interpretive Center (bobcat)

The loop as described around the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center on Flagstaff Hill (bobcat) Courtesy: Google Maps

• Start point: Flagstaff Hill Trailhead
• Ending point: Oregon Trail Wagon Ruts
• Hike type: Loop with spurs
• Distance: 3.6 miles
• Elevation gain: 415 feet
• High point: 3,940 feet
• Difficulty: Easy
• Seasons: All year
• Family Friendly: Yes
• Backpackable: No
• Crowded: No

Hike Description

The National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center opened in 1992 near the site of the Flagstaff Gold Mine. The center offers both indoor and outdoor exhibits about the Oregon Trail, Native Americans, and local mining history, while a series of trails takes you down to wagon ruts past interpretive signs detailing the natural and human history of the area. During high season weekends, there are often living history performances here. It should be noted that the interpretive center will close in 2022 for renovations for a period of about 2 1/2 years although most of the trail system will remain open.

From the parking area, you’ll get views to the Elkhorn Mountains, the highest range in Oregon’s Blue Mountains, with the two highest peaks, Elkhorn Peak and Rock Creek Butte in full view. Spread below you is the agricultural Baker Valley, while looking back, you can get just a peek at the Wallowas. From the covered picnic area, you can head left across a seating area to a wagon circle. A paved trail takes you back to the parking area, but then you can turn right immediately for the Ascent Trail and loop down a sagebrush/bunchgrass slope. Numbered posts are part of the Geology Walk (guide available inside the interpretive center). At a junction, go left on the Ascent Trail.

The Ascent Trail loops down and then makes a gradually descending traverse offering great views to the Elkhorns and the Powder River valley. (The trail can be slick and muddy when wet.) You’ll soon reach the Oregon Trail Ruts Loop. Go left here past a kiosk to a wagon parked in the ruts, which appear as a linear depression. It is known that most of the pioneers took this route up from Ruckles Creek to the east and then down this small draw to Missouri Flat and the Baker Valley. The ruts are a segment of the 13 miles of the wagon route still visible to the east along Virtue Flat. A small reservoir in the draw that covered the ruts was decommissioned in the early 1990s. You’ll also see the granite Meeker Marker here. Ezra Meeker, an 1852 emigrant, came back here in 1906 to place the monument.

Continue around on the paved trail, passing the junction with the Auburn Burnt River Spur Trail, to reach the junction with the Eagle Valley Railroad Loop. Before taking this trail, you can bear right down the bottom of the draw again to see an official Oregon Trail obelisk placed there by the Bureau of Land Management. On the Eagle Valley Railroad Loop, you’re actually walking along the alignment of a short-lived railroad spur from the Oregon Trunk Railroad at Baker to the Eagle Valley near the Snake River. In spring, death-camas, larkspur, phlox, and paintbrush bloom among the sagebrush. Entrances to a badger warren appear along the trail. The green fields of Missouri Flat appear below. The trail turns downhill at a bench with a fence off to the left. Cross the “ruts” at the bottom of the draw, and then head up and over a rocky point before descending into another gully. The trail then rises to meet the paved Mountain Ash Trail.

You’ll make a left here, rising in two looping switchbacks below an outcrop of the Grande Ronde Member of the Columbia River Basalts. At a junction, bear left for Panorama Point. This spur trail leads to a kiosk with views over agricultural Missouri Flat, named after the area from which most of the 300,000 Oregon Trail emigrants departed on their 2,000 mile journey. The interpretive display here tells about the agricultural practices in the broad Baker Valley.

Return to the junction, and keep left. Pass another kiosk, and get views across Flagstaff Gulch to the Cliff Tungsten Mine and its scattering of vehicles and equipment. The trails makes two loops up the slope before you should head left along a maintenance track to reach a replica of a blacksmith shop on the site of the Flagstaff Gold Mine. You can continue on to a reconstructed stamp mill, based on an actual building from the Rabbit Mine 30 miles away in the Blue Mountains. The stamp mill used gravity to processed ore, fed in through the top, in a series of stages to separate out the gold. Interpretive signs inside the mill explain the whole process in detail. Above the stamp mill is an adit for a lode mine, now with a bat gate and a rusting ore cart perched at the end of rails.

Loop up to the right above the mine adit, passing signs displaying local mammals. Make a left and then a right to return to the covered picnic area.

Fees, Regulations, etc.

• Interpretive center, picnic area, restrooms, interpretive signs
• Entry fee: $8 per adult April through October; $5 per adult November through March; America the Beautiful Pass accepted (no charge during renovations)
• Trails open every day all year
• Dogs on leash

Maps

• Maps: Hike Finder
• National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center (Bureau of Land Management)
• Pacific Northwest Recreation Map Series: Malheur River Country

Trip Reports

• Search Trip Reports for Flagstaff Hill Loop Hike

Related Discussions / Q&A

• Search Trail Q&A for Flagstaff Hill Loop Hike

Guidebooks that cover this destination

• Hiking Oregon’s History by William L. Sullivan
• Oregon Hiking by Sean Patrick Hill
• Pacific Northwest Hiking by Craig Hill & Matt Wastradowski

More Links

• National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center (Bureau of Land Management)
• Oregon National Historic Trail (National Park Service)
• National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center (National Park Service)
• These 8 Oregon Hiking Trails Lead To Some Incredible Pieces of History (Only In Your State)
• Oregon Trail Interpretive Center Loop (All Trails)
• National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center (Oregon Encyclopedia)
• “ Following in wagon ruts of American history on Oregon Trail” (Atlanta Journal-Contitution)
• Flagstaff Mine Gallery (Western Mining History)
• “Oregon Trail Interpretive Center to close in 2022 for two years for renovations” (Oregon Live)

Page Contributors

• bobcat (creator)