Larch Mountain stands as one of the three big shield volcanoes of the extended Boring Lava Fields. Rising to 4055 feet high, the mountain presents an array of contrasts. Once the site of intense logging industry, the mountain shows an amazing natural renewal a century after most of the timber production came to a halt. Pockets of old growth, wonderful views from the top and remnants of past industry all make Larch Mountain and its crater, a fascinating walk in the woods.
ROADS AND RAILS IN THE WOODS
Before today’s road reached the summit of Larch Mountain in 1939, the closest road was the one going up to the logging camp of Palmer. This road – still present in part – is the Palmer Mill Road steeply gaining elevation quickly up the Bridal Veil canyon. The lower starting point is also the overflow parking area for hikers walking on the Angels’ Rest trail. A 1918 story in the Oregonian notes the “road goes up and up and up. Three and a half miles of it – mostly up”. Along the way “there is one sharp pitch of 100 feet or so where the grade has been surveyed and announced to be 31 per cent. And at either end this 31 per cent is guarded by a quarter mile or more of 15 to 25 per cent grade.”
Most of the way up to Palmer – in 1918 – was described as passing through “logged-off country”, the heart of the lands of the Bridal Veil Lumbering Company. “At various places on the sides of the canyon are weathered heaps of sawdust, where its mills were situated at various times. But the timber cutting operations have now moved far up the mountain.” From the camp at Palmer where there was a boarding house, one walked trails to connect with narrow-gauge railroads – about 1-1.5 miles above Palmer – in order to reach the logging camps higher up the mountain.
BOOM TO BUST
In 1902, a fire swept through one of the mills, completely destroying it as well as the town. Both mill and town soon rebuilt in new locations. This event often heralded as the start of the decline of the large-scale Victorian logging practices, replaced by more modern techniques. Only a few remnants of the former system exist today. Logging continued in the new forms on the mountain for several more decades. In 1928, the Forest Service began reforesting the slopes of Larch Mountain, to produce more lumber. A fire in 1936 marked the end of the timber business on the mountain. Causing around $100,000 of damage, it severely damaged the lumber mill, not to be rebuilt due to the depletion of the timber supply on the mountain.
logs from forest to the mills
Pictures from the era of the Bridal Veil Lumber Company-Crown Willamette era show the typical photo of simple ecological destruction. “Larch” trees – larch trees, deciduous grow found on the east side of the Cascades. In realty, noble firs and mountain hemlock, were stripped off the slopes of Larch Mountain between 1886 and 1936 when the Bridal Veil company sold out to Kraft Foods. The company – now the Bridal Veil Lumber & Box Company – transformed the Bridal Veil mill into one making wooden boxes for foodstuffs. With World War 2, they slid into creating boxes for all sorts of other needs such as ammunition boxes. After the war, the company branched out to making door and window frames.
THE END?
Kraft lasted until 1960 before a series of other owners until the final closure of Bridal Veil in 1988. The Bridal Veil complex lasted into the early 29th century before everything was removed.
Conservationists succeeded with the creation of the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Act. With powerful people working for the CRGNSA to become reality, the Trust for Public Lands also got in on the action. Many of the conservationists reflected the thoughts held by Nancy Russell, one of the main advocates for the original CRGNSA, who wanted to save “the trails, the rivers, the trees, the waterfalls, the basalt cliffs, the parks, the Old Columbia River Highway and the wildflowers, especially the wildflowers.” The TPL purchased the Bridal Veil site and Russell is quoted as wanting to “remove “decaying buildings at Bridal Veil, [and] trailer homes in scenic locales”. In the words of historian David Benac, Russell considered “‘any aesthetic blight in the Gorge a personal insult. When residents opposed demolition, she bemoaned: “Why don’t they get their own opportunity instead of getting in the way of mine.'”
nature or culture?
Natural beauty trumped cultural significance. The century old heritage of the logging industry within the Gorge eliminated. Time already passed Bridal Veil behind, but all evidence was removed in order to create a site of more natural aesthetics. Again, to quote David Benac, “Industrial heritage and its attendant landscapes often unearth uncomfortable events and fail the test of aesthetics, and so remain difficult to commemorate. The failure to recognize the complexities of human interactions with landscapes produces an impoverished record left adrift from historical reality. The rarity of sites engaging such a nuanced interpretation speaks loudly about cultural attitudes toward heritage, while rendering workers voiceless and the historical landscape incomplete.”
BRIDAL VEIL TODAY
From the large parking lot above and on the west side of Bridal Veil Falls on the old Columbia River Highway, if you walk downstream of the trail bridge going to the viewpoint of Bridal Veil Falls, you notice some evidence of the former lumber company. The site of the mills and company town are large, flattened areas south of the rail tracks. A cemetery from the late 19th century and a post office – kept alive by many bridal committees desiring the circular stamp – are all that remain.
Most of the other lumber mills along the Columbia River are long gone as well.
UP IN THE BRIDAL VEIL LUMBER LANDS TODAY
Much of the forest lands formerly owned by both the Bridal Veil Lumber Company and Crown Willamette today make up part of the vast Mount Hood National Forest. Lands in the upper stretches of Multnomah Creek have found inclusion into the Mark O. Hatfield Wilderness Area. The area today, at first glance, appears primeval, with ancient forests all around. Look closer, however, and signs of the former logging industry hiding in the understory reveal themselves.
A June 1916 story in the Oregon Daily Journal talking about the Larch Mountain trail writes “Don’t make a picnic party out of the ascent of Larch Mountain.” Going on, “There is nothing difficult or terrifying about the climb if it is under favorable conditions. The proposition is merely that of covering seven miles of passing fair trail with nearly every step you take being an upward one. … No matter where you start the climb from, you have 4,000 feet to go…” Then there was the snow on the summit, reported still to be “15 to 18 feet deep” in early June.
And, “For nearly one mile near the summit the trail has been covered by fallen logs. The Bridal Veil Lumber Co.’s logging operations have reached the summit of the ridge and to persons unused to climbing, this scramble over and under huge logs and through brush is heart breaking. The difficulty at present is a most aggravated one and the majority of persons who have passed through this fallen forest have lost the trail repeatedly.”
WESTERN SLOPES
Most of the timber cut came off the western slopes of Larch Mountain as the mountain blends into a semi-plateau to the northwest along Bridal Veil Creek which originates just off the western Larch crater rim. Rail lines were built over the many years of logging operations moving in somewhat concentric circles around the west side of the Larch Mountain crater.
One line reached to the top of the northwest Larch crater rim above where the Larch Mountain Trail crosses Forest Road #315 near an old quarry.
Another branch snaked around the southern summit side a few hundred feet beneath today’s road. This line actually dropped into the Larch crater. The old railbed still gains use as the upper part of the Multnomah Way Trail where it terminates with the upper part of the Oneonta Trail. That line – followed by the trail – reached into the Larch crater as far as the rock ridge coming down off Sherrard Point.
keeping the mills filled with product
Skid roads worked off the rail lines with steam donkeys set up to pull logs onto the waiting rail cars. The logs then went to the lumber mill at Palmer where they were cut up into lumber. The lumber – still unfinished – went down the three-mile log flume to the finishing mill down on the Columbia River at Bridal Veil next to the main rail line for further transport. Several of the old rail lines found new life as Forest Service roads – like the upper Palmer Mill Road – Forest Road #1520.
Note: most of the vintage photographs come from a period piece showing operations of the Bridal Veil Lumber Company operations – 1896 Souvenir of the Bridal Veil Lumbering Company – featured online by the Special Collections Division at the University of Washington Library.
ROADS THRUOUGH THE FORESTS
Before today’s road reached the summit of Larch Mountain in 1939, the closest road was the one going up to the logging camp of Palmer. This road – still present in part – is the Palmer Mill Road steeply gaining elevation quickly up the Bridal Veil canyon. The lower starting point is also the overflow parking area for hikers walking on the Angels’ Rest trail. A 1918 story in the Oregonian notes the “road goes up and up and up. Three and a half miles of it – mostly up”. Along the way “there is one sharp pitch of 100 feet or so where the grade has been surveyed and announced to be 31 per cent. And at either end this 31 per cent is guarded by a quarter mile or more of 15 to 25 per cent grade.”
Palmer mill road
That road saw wagon traffic in the beginning, moving to trucks as the 20th century moved along. The road still comes up – steeply at first – from the Angel’s Rest trailhead set above the former mill at Bridal Veil. That section of the Palmer Mill Road dead ends near the former site of the company mill town at Palmer in the Bridal Veil Creek canyon. Closed off today, the section moving through the former millsite is undergoing a forest restoration by the Forest Service. Multnomah County remains responsible for upkeep of the lower part of the road, but expensive repairs on washouts in the steep canyon along with little use today by cars have the county thinking about closing the road.
POSSIBILITIES
Some have had thoughts about the possibility of establishing a hiking trail in the Bridal Veil canyon to allow people to see waterfalls only visited presently by the very ambitious. It is amazing to think a log flume ran down the canyon, sometimes used by loggers going off shift for a weekend. They rode the flume down, after working in the woods or mill at Palmer, to Bridal Veil where they could catch a train to Portland for fun or simply to purchase things they might need up in the forests.
The forests logged by the lumber companies have now recovered to the point where they look primeval once again. Stumps can still be discerned around the base of the now giant second growth – the new trees have been growing for almost a century now. Lands below the Forest boundary still privately owned, and timber operations are ongoing, but not at the scale of what must have once been.
WHAT WAS ONCE THE END OF THE WORLD
I read a story about a young teacher whose first job upon graduation, just after 1900, was to teach school at Hamlet, Oregon. Hamlet is/was a small logging camp much like Palmer at the end of a wagon road/trail up the Necanicum River from Seaside. She wrote about how hard life was for a young woman at what was then literally the end of earth, where it could take days to reach civilization. Life must have been similar in so many other logging and mill camps like Palmer, as well.
Remains lie hidden under the re-grown forests along the Bridal Veil Creek and the western slopes of Larch Mountain. You can wander about and find them. Many have made it their hobby to search out as many of those remains as they can. You can see their results in the forums of PortlandHikers.org. But even cursory walks in these woods, if you are aware of the history, demonstrate an industry which cut its way out of business.
We have been taught clear cutting gives the best chance at turning over a forest, but for timber landowners, they need to own huge amounts of land to enable them to sit on regrowing forests over the next fifty plus years. In Bridal Veil’s case, they simply ran out of trees, could not endure the wait nor afford to buy trees from other lands.
HIKING THROUGH THE LARCH MOUNTAIN CRATER
Sherrard Point
With a fine paved seasonal road – Forest Highway 15 – to the top – with a large parking area – most people who come to get close up on Larch Mountain simply drive to the summit. Only the parking lot is still not the true summit. Sherrard Point, the highest point at 4055 feet, is an ancient plug to the volcano, attached to the Larch crater rim by a little ridge traversed by an asphalted path and a series of steps. The stairs lead to a large platform from which you can peer out over the crater below and to five glaciated volcanoes rising in the distance. To the south lies the vast Bull Run Reserve, a watershed owned and run by the City of Portland providing drinking water for the metroplex.
Quick note: parking in the lot beneath Sherrard Point requires a Forest Pass – daily, seasonal or some other parking pass good for Federal parks.
View to the northeast off Sherrard Point. Note the west and east rims of the volcanic crater atop Larch Mountain.
Looking north over the crater, you see verdant green of the rejuvenated forests, until you come upon the fringes of the 2017 fire. Franklin Ridge and parts of the upper Multnomah Creek canyon below the crater show areas where the fires burned hot. That fire, driven by strong winds blowing to the west, stayed below around the immediate rim of the Gorge getting up to around the 2,400-foot level. But for this day, we save these views for the end of the hike.
OPTIONS
Trails encircle the rim of the Larch Mountain crater. But one path leads through the middle.
Walking normally begins from the summit parking lot with a quick visit to Sherrard Point. Then it either clockwise or counterclockwise, the hike truly begins.
A quick note to those moving against the clock. From the parking lot, you need to backtrack down the road about 0.4 miles until you see the sign for the Oneonta Trail. This trail provides a second long distance pathway leading down to the Columbia River – same 4000+ vertical elevation gain (another fifty feet more than Larch Mountain Trail) to go along with an 18-mile round trip versus the 13 miles up Multnomah Creek.
COUNTERCLOCKWISE – ANTICLOCKWISE TO OUR ENGLISH FRIENDS
Open Street topo map shows the path through the crater of Larch Mountain.
Begins and ends at the upper parking lot at the upper end of Larch Mountain Road.
For the hike through the Larch Mountain crater from the summit parking lot, I recommend a counterclockwise direction for the hike. You get the road walk out of the way while fresh and the few views are better when considering the sun orientation.
You do not walk these routes for the wide-ranging views for the most part since most of the route stays deep in the woods. So, from the parking lot, backtrack on the road to the last hairpin turn in the road where the top of the Oneonta Trail begins.
beginnings
For the first mile, you descend at a relatively mild rate through dense second growth forest. Remember Larch Mountain was heavily logged off on the west and south sides. Stumps dot the forest floor attesting to the logged past. Here, the Bridal Veil Lumber past knowledge comes in handy.
former narrow-gauge railbed
After about a mile on the Oneonta Trail, you meet the trail junction with the Multnomah Way Trail. Turn left onto the new path. This way follows the former rail bed of one of the narrow-gauge rail lines used to take the logs off the mountain en route for the mill at Palmer.
The Multnomah Way Trail follows the old rail bed for about a mile into the eastern side of the Larch crater. Looking on the opposite side of the Oneonta Trail, you can see the rail bed contouring into the underbrush along the former route of the line.
You can quickly see the old rail cut through the top of the crater rim where the rails used to run. The first mile takes you along the bed of the narrow-gauge with century-old stumps still visible underneath the vigorous second growth forest.
end of the line
Suddenly, the trail begins to drop in earnest as it leaves the former rail bed dropping into old growth forests that loggers did not reach for probably reasons they now had reached National Forest lands. The trees are definitely bigger now as the trail descends sharply with a series of switchbacks taking you to the floor of the crater.
crater floor
Here, you reach the headwaters of the West Fork of Multnomah Creek. A large marshy are – you might have noted it from atop Sherrard Point – is bypassed to the east.
Just before reaching the junction with the Multnomah Spur Trail at the log bridge crossing of the creek, look for a spur boot-path leading off to the left through huckleberry and blueberry bushes. This takes you to the north end of those marshes. On my last visit, a beaver dam was present forming a pond into which Ollie proceeded to wallow. Nothing like a corgi getting the undercarriage wet in order to pick up as much dirt as possible on the final pushes of the hike.
But you also have a nice view of Sherrard Point peaking high above the marshes of the creek. Far reaching views are hard to come by on these Larch Mountain treks, so take advantage.
log bridge return
Next, cross the log bridge over the creek at the junction with the Multnomah Spur Trail. Another 0.3 miles brings you up a switchback to a junction with the upper part of the Larch Mountain Trail. Turn left and walk up to the summit of Larch Mountain on this path.
Another 0.3 miles brings you up a switchback to a junction with the upper part of the Larch Mountain Trail. Turn left and walk up to the summit of Larch Mountain on this path.
Another half mile and you pass by a small campsite just below crossing Forest Road #315. A well-built rock wall on the north side of that road makes one think it might have predated the road in a fashion of being built for a spur of the narrow-gauge system up here on Larch Mountain.
peak bagging
The next 0.3 miles after the road crossing steepens up a bit before mellowing into an easier climb up the west crater rim. About another mile up, you find a trail – unmarked – going off to the left serving as a shortcut to the path leading to Sherrard Point. Since we started this hike off counterclockwise, take this path in order to gain the views from the top.
Once you have taken in the views, walk back to the parking lot on the asphalt trail staying left at the intersection with the asphalt path you came in on.
Total for the inside the crater tour is 6.2 miles with 1.178 vertical feet gained and lost in three hours’ time.
Total for the rim circumvention comes to 6.2 miles with 1,414 vertical feet gained and lost along the way. Recommended time runs to just over three hours.
HIKES BEYOND
Other starting point possibilities up high include the northern hairpin turn of Larch Mountain Road. Where Forest Road #315 goes off on the left – east – side of the road, park along the side – the forest road usually gated. A short walk up the road brings you to the Larch Mountain Trail just above the Multnomah Way junction.
Or you could park another mile and a half down the Larch Mountain Road at another obvious gated forest road. This is the upper terminus of the Palmer Mill Road. This road – with a fairly wide parking area by the gate – takes you into the heart of the former logging grounds of the Bridal Veil Lumber Company. The road mainly used today by members of the Trails Club of Oregon as it accesses the Multnomah Basin Road leading to their Nesika Lodge on the east side of the Multnomah Basin. You can also access the upper Wahkeena basin, Devil’s Rest and Angel’s Rest from this spot. Lots of possibilities.