Black Creek

Black Creek has the biggest trees in Lane County, and a gorgeous waterfall to boot.

The mountains east of Oakridge hide the best summertime destinations in Lane County that you’ve never heard of. In one day, this trip up Salmon Creek to Black Creek Canyon will take you from campground to wilderness and—in whatever order you want—from an ice-cold swimming hole to a stunning old-growth stand to a beautiful waterfall deep in the heart of the Cascades.

Directions: Take I-5 south from Eugene for approximately 3 miles. Take the Oakridge/Klamath Falls exit (Exit 188A). Stay to the left onto Hwy. 58. Take 58 for approximately 35 miles to Oakridge. In downtown Oakridge, take a left on Crestview Street. In a quarter of a mile, take a right on 1^st Street. 1^st Street turns into Forest Service Road 24.

Just three miles up FS 24, you’ll see a sign for Salmon Creek Falls Campground. The short falls churn a deep blue pool to frothy white foam. It’s the perfect place for a dip after a hot day of hiking.

For the big trees, continue up FS 24 for 10 miles from Oakridge, where you’ll stay right onto Black Creek Road and cross Salmon Creek. Black Creek Road turns to gravel in about three miles. 6.5 miles after you cross Salmon Creek, take a right at the sign for the Joe Goddard Nature Trail. You’ll walk across a rustic log bridge over Black Creek—a remnant of past logging operations—and find the trailhead on your left. Peering off the bridge you’ll notice that the rocky creek bottom is covered in an eerie black moss.

The Goddard Nature Trail is a short loop—only about a quarter of a mile—but you can spend hours ogling the monstrous trees. You’ll stroll past a nine-foot diameter western red cedar and several Douglas firs that are more than 200 feet tall and ten feet wide. The most impressive specimen is a three and a half foot diameter Pacific yew conveniently located next to a picnic table.

There are taller trees in Lane County (up Little Fall Creek) and there’s big Sitka spruce north of Florence that are might be bigger by volume, but for pure size—girth and crown diameter—the Doug firs in this small grove are the biggest trees in Lane County.

When you’ve had your fill of big trees, continue up Black Creek Road another 1.5 miles to where the road dead ends at the Black Creek trailhead. The trail winds through an old tree plantation for several hundred yards until it crosses into the Waldo Lake Wilderness and enters a nice old growth forest of Douglas fir, western hemlock and Pacific yew. It’s just slightly more than a mile to Lillian Falls, which is really a series of small waterfalls that tumble over boulders draped in brilliant green moss.

Black Creek Canyon is a glacier carved furrow that reaches from Salmon Creek almost to the shores of Waldo Lake. At the extreme eastern end of the canyon there’s just a thin rocky lip separating Black Creek from Waldo Lake, the largest natural lake in western Oregon.

The trail to Lillian Falls is an easy hike, but if you’re up for more adventure the Black Creek Trail climbs steeply from the falls through a dense sub-alpine forest and strikes Waldo Lake just north of Klovdahl Bay, another three miles from Lillian Falls.

At the turn of the century, a local entrepreneur, James Klovdahl, hatched a scheme to tunnel from Waldo Lake to Black Creek and draw water from the lake to irrigate farms downstream. Luckily for Waldo Lake and Black Creek, the plan was abandoned, although you can still see the headgates of Klovdahl’s dam works by hiking south on the Waldo Lake Trail.

Take some time to explore the other summertime attractions of the Salmon Creek area, including Waldo Mountain, Huckleberry and Blair Lakes and Salmon Creek Trail.  Be sure and leave time to hit the swimming hole on your way out.