35. Goodman Creek

Summary

Length – 2 ¼ miles one way

Difficulty – Easy

Season – Year-round

Elevation range –980 feet – 1,150 feet

Human imprint – High (Highway 58 noise, high use)

Information - Willamette National Forest, Middle Fork Ranger District

Primary old growth features

Easily accessible, year-round old forest.

Description

This easy hike offers the shortest drive-time from Eugene (35 minutes) to hikable old growth. Head up the Hardesty Mountain Trail (3469) from the large Hardesty trailhead picnic and parking area. Note that this trailhead requires a Forest Pass, available at the trailhead. Turn right onto the Goodman Creek Trail (3461.1) after ¼ mile and follow the trail around the Goodman arm of Lookout Point Lake to a convenient stopping point at the crossing of charming Goodman Creek. The trail continues up the creek through younger forests and near roads for another couple of miles before ending at the lower Eagles Rest trailhead. Highway noise is audible for the first half of the hike.

The forest on these productive, lower-elevation sites has aged nicely framing a very pretty old-forest hike. Swordfern glades punctuated with patches of oxalis highlight the surface vegetation. The forest is dominated by Douglas-fir with scattered western redcedar. The understory and midstory has not yet fully developed in most places, but shade-tolerant western hemlock is increasingly coming in. Broadly speaking, there are two dominant age classes of post-fire Douglas-fir, one approximately 200 years old, and another over 500 years old. Most of the forest is the younger cohort, but older fire-scorched veterans are scattered throughout and there is a nice pocket of old growth near the Goodman Creek crossing.

25 years of change

The forests in this area are noticeably developing more old-growth characteristics with time (bigger trees and dead wood, more structurally diverse canopy and understory); formal paved and developed trailhead.

How to get there

Turn right (south) into the large, paved Hardesty Trailhead off of Highway 58, just east of the Goodman arm of Lookout Point Lake (26 miles southeast of Eugene).