Low Divide Creek Hike
From Oregon Hikers Field Guide
- Start point: Summit Trailhead
- End point: Gales Creek Trailhead
- Trail log:
- Hike Type: Lollipop loop
- Distance: 4.2 miles
- Elevation gain: 705 feet
- High Point: 1550 feet
- Difficulty: Moderate
- Seasons: All year
- Family Friendly: Yes
- Backpackable: No
- Crowded: No
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Hike Description
This hike heads down a pretty creek and allows visitors to get a feel for the Tillamook State Forest. This is all secondary woodland about 65 years old and recovering from the great Tillamook Burns of the period between 1933 and 1951. Hillsides are dominated by Douglas-fir and western hemlock, but the creek bottoms host large groves of red alder, a species that readily spreads on the bottomlands and lower slopes of disturbed forest. There is a small loop at the lower end of the hike and the recommended start is right along Highway 6 at the Summit Trailhead although a hike uphill from the Gales Creek Trailhead is possible between May and October when the road to the Gales Creek Campground is open.
Note that work is being done on this trail in 2018. Two reroutes will take a good portion of the trail higher up the slope and away from the creek.
From the Summit Trailhead, the Gales Creek Trail descends steps in two short switchbacks and drops in Douglas-fir woods down an old road bed. Low Divide Creek runs below to the left. Oregon grape, sword fern, and salal form the understory. Cross a footbridge and wind steeply down to the valley floor, where large alders stand over the creek. After crossing another footbridge, head up and traverse above a soggy alder bottomland. There’s another footbridge and then the trail heads down above the creek. There are old beaver dams that have caused the creek to spread out, but there are no signs of recent activity. The trail rises and then drops to a footbridge and wends down through salmonberry thickets. A spur leads down to the creek. The path heads into an alder-filled bowl and winds down, passing over a small creek. Make an undulating traverse above Low Divide Creek. The trail rises and falls several times, traversing and dropping down through woods with alders on the left and Douglas-firs with some cedars and hemlocks on the right. Cross another creek. Large stumps in the woods here give you a flavor of the magnificent old growth that once graced these slopes. Reach the Gales Creek-Low Divide Creek Loop Trail Junction where a sign says Gales Creek Campground is 0.2 miles.
Go right at the junction and head up to an old road bed. The trail makes use of the road bed and then drops off it down to the left and switchbacks to steps that descend to Rogers Road. Go left on the road over the culvert that carries Low Divide Creek and pass the Gales Creek Day-use area. It’s 220 yards or so along the road to the Gales Creek Trailhead parking area on the left. Take the trail signposted "Low Divide Loop" that heads up on a graveled tread through a salmonberry, devil’s club, vine maple thicket under Douglas-firs. At a junction, go left and cross Low Divide Creek to head up its south bank to the Gales Creek-Low Divide Creek Loop Trail Junction above a railed footbridge. Here go right to hike up the Low Divide Creek valley and eventually reach the Summit Trailhead.
Maps
- Maps: Hike Finder
- Gales Creek Trail (State of Oregon)
- Oregon Department of Forestry: Tillamook State Forest Map & Guide
Fees, Regulations, etc.
- Share trail with mountain bikers
Trip Reports
- Search Trip Reports for Low Divide Creek Hike
Related Discussions / Q&A
- Search Trail Q&A for Low Divide Creek Hike
Guidebooks that cover this hike
- 25 Hikes on Oregon's Tillamook Coast by Adam Sawyer
- Afoot & Afield: Portland/Vancouver by Douglas Lorain
- Best Hikes Near Portland, Oregon by Fred Barstad
- 50 Hikes in the Tillamook and Clatsop State Forests by the Sierra Club, Oregon Chapter
- 50 Hikes in the Tillamook State Forest by the Tillamook State Forest Committee, Columbia Group Sierra Club
- Oregon Campgrounds Hiking Guide by Rhonda & George Ostertag
- Oregon Nature Weekends by Jim Yuskavitch
- Oregon Coast Camping & Hiking by Tom Stienstra & Sean Patrick Hill
- Oregon Hiking by Sean Patrick Hill
- Pacific Northwest Hiking by Scott Leonard & Megan McMorris
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- bobcat (creator)