8. Swamp Peak Trail

Summary

Length – 4 miles one way, plus options for longer hikes

Difficulty – Difficult

Season – Summer to autumn

Elevation range –3,550 feet – 4,380 feet

Human imprint – Minimal

Information - Willamette National Forest, Sweet Home Ranger District

Primary old growth features

Remote old growth featuring large western hemlock.

Description

The Swamp Peak Trail (3401) offers an alternative and seldom-travelled route into the northern reaches of the Middle Santiam Wilderness. The trail bisects a long expanse of old forest featuring a mix of true fir, hemlocks, and Douglas-fir as it drops southward. Energetic hikers have several options for extending the hike where the trail joins the Chimney Peak Trail (3382).

Head southwest through the initial plantation and soon enter old forest where large noble fir appear to be breaking up and dying out. Douglas-fir and western hemlock soon become more dominant, including numerous very large western hemlock. The trail swings south and west around Knob Rock, enters the Wilderness, and heads south down a secondary ridgeline. The trail spends a pleasant mile or so on the ridgeline bisecting a mature Douglas-fir and noble fir forest with occasional larger survivors. The trail then switchbacks steeply down the south-facing nose of the ridge entering a Douglas-fir dominated old-growth forest before joining the Chimney Peak Trail.

One option to extend the hike is to continue west on the Chimney Peak Trail winding around the headwaters of Fitt Creek through an interesting slow-moving earthflow. Tipsy trees, a jumbled and hummocky surface, and tension cracks in the ground provide the telltale clues. Remote forest primeval borders the trail all the way to Chimney Peak (approximately 4 miles later).

A second option is to head southeast on the Chimney Peak Trail and hike through more old forest to Donaca Lake (see hike 10 for another route to the lake). For a third option, continue past the lake in a long loop (approximately 15 ¾ miles). Continue to the Gordan Peak Trail junction, turn left, hike up the Gordan Peak Trail (3387, hike 9) to the eastern terminus of the Swamp Peak Trail, and return to the trailhead via the Swamp Peak Trail.

25 years of change

The old noble fir is starting to break up and die out; mature forest on the southern ridgeline is getting noticeably larger.

How to get there

From U.S. Highway 20 by the upper end of Foster Lake (4 miles east of Sweet Home), turn north onto the Quartzville Road and head toward Green Peter Lake. Drive well past the reservoir, staying right onto FR 11 at a fork in the road 24 ¾ miles from the highway. Then turn right onto the east end of FR 1152 approximately 14 miles past the fork (this junction can also be reached from Highway 22 approximately 10 miles to the east.) Turn left onto FR 640 about 5 miles later. The trailhead is on the right 1/3 mile up FR 640. Note that the west end of FR 1152 is blocked by a large landslide.