Multnomah - Wahkeena Loop: 5 years after the burn

About 5 years ago, the Columbia Gorge was alight with a huge forest fire that burned many of the popular hiking and recreational areas on the Oregon side. I have not revisited the Multnoma – Wahkeena loop for 2 years (because of my knee replacement) but my partner and I got back to it today and we had us a little adventure. 

The fire burned through the Oneta gorge and then up and over the hills on the east side of Multnomah creek. Up that creek, most of the trees on the east side are dead, though still standing. The fire burned across the creek and up the hills on the west side but got stopped in places and didn’t completely engulf the Wahkeenah creek valley. The forest up above The Multnomah Wahkeena Crossroads is scorched, but still mostly alive. Below that appears to be mostly dead. A large stretch of the forest that that trail runs through along that ridge is extremely dead. Let me rephrase that. The big trees are dead, the understory is alive with new growth, especially thimble-berry. 

When the fire came through, most of those big trees didn’t burn out-right. The fire burned the understory all around them and the heat blackened their trunks and damaged or killed the trees. Those trees are still standing, but 5 years down the line now they are starting to rot. Some of them rot up near the top and their branches fall and maybe the wind breaks them off halfway up so they become benign standing stumps. Others rot down in the roots and this loosens their tenuous hold on the earth so when it rains heavily and the wind blows down the gorge, the entire huge tree rips from the soil and falls over and then, perhaps, goes sliding down the steep gorge walls.

Needless to say, all of this excitement is wrecking havoc on the trail system. We hit a few obstacles when we were out hiking today. The most common was just downed dead branches. These were all over the trail in some places, but they were not that big and could be stepped on or over. In a couple of other places there were trees that had fallen across the path but we could duck under them, perhaps on hands on and knees. The biggest problem was the huge trees that had been growing with their roots as part of the trail. When they toppled they left a big hole in the trail and created a dangerous obstacle for hikers.

One tree looked like it had partially toppled in the last few days. This was up near the top of the steep gorge walls. The tree was tall and it had fallen over and was leaning against another (also dead) tree. Paige and I looked up and there, 100 feet above us, the tops of both trees were swaying back and forth in the 30mph gusts of wind. The base was not moving, but there was a big hole you had to negotiate. You choices were to try and stay on the trail, which was tilted over and going down the hill with the tree in the not too distant future, or go uphill of the trail and try to walk around the new tree root hole without falling in. Both choices required the tree and root-ball to stay where they were. 

Another tree was a 4 foot diameter log that had fallen down the hill with the root-ball above the trail. You had to go over the tree, which meant that if you didn’t have long enough legs to stradle the tree, you had to hug it and sort of slide over. This wouldn’t have been too bad except the tree trunk was completely scorched black, so you were going to get covered in soot. The other problem was that the tree was wet and sitting at a big angle going down the hill. If you couldn’t keep a foot hold on one side, you had the chance of slipping down the rain slicked tree trunk until you hit a branch 50 or 60 feet down the gulch. Not good. The guy who went just ahead of us had long legs and it was not problem. My partner had a harder time and I admit that it was sort of scary for me also. Good thing we are both intrepid adventurors. Oh, if this blog ends suddenly, it means we didn’t make it over the next obstacle and you should call for a rescue.

These trees are scorched at the base but still alive.
This is looking up toward the ridge of Devils Rest

All along the trail, wind and rain and tree fall erosion have been greatly accelerated by the fire damage. The trail is going to need a lot of work as the rate of fall of these dead trees picks up over the next few years. The other strange thing is how much better the view is now from the top of the ridge. 6 years ago you really couldn’t see much of the Columbia or Washington from the Multnomah ridge, either in the Summer of the winter. Now you have a great view. You can also see the magnificent stone pillars that make up the Oregon side but are usually hidden by the understory and the thick tops of the trees that are growing way down below you but rise up to block your view. 

Large New Undergrowth

Unobscured views of cliffs

The creeks are also getting choked with wood from trees that have slid down the gullies into the rushing water and are then broken and smashed and pushed into big logjams that are all over. This, of course, changes the way the river flows and pushes rocks and dirt around to different places. Lots of change up in those burned hills. It will be interesting to see what kind of trees grow up in the places where all of the dead Doug First now stand.  I don’t know if the Forest Service plans to replant with something or just to see what happens.