Family Travel

A Family Educational Adventure at Opal Creek

By Marie Sherlock

My husband and I are part of a rare and perhaps dying breed of Portland area parents – we’re both native Oregonians. I think I can count on one hand the number of families I’m acquainted with in which both parents can claim membership in this select group.

You would think then that in our nearly 100 years of combined Oregon residence we would have visited all of the area’s natural wonders. Not so. We tried to rectify one of those (major) oversights this past summer by visiting the Opal Creek Wilderness Area.

For the uninitiated, the Opal Creek Wilderness and Scenic Recreation Area covers 35,000 acres in the northwestern tip of the Willamette National Forest, about an hour’s drive east of Salem. It’s a stunning piece of nature, with majestic stands of old growth trees and miles of hiking trails bordered by pristine streams.

Fortunately, for families and individuals who would like to know more about this magnificent natural setting, the Opal Creek Ancient Forest Center offers educational workshops, beginning each spring, some geared specifically for families. We opt for the Wilderness Survival Family Workshop for our introduction to Opal Creek, thinking that topic would most appeal to our teenagers.
And it does. Along with four other families, we meet early on a Saturday morning at the trail head and load our gear on to the Opal Creek van to be transported to Jawbone Flats. This 1930s mining town is home to the Opal Creek Ancient Forest Center and we’ll be spending the night there. All able-bodied visitors to Jawbone Flats are asked to walk the three miles to the small settlement, ensuring hikers a car-free experience and giving them their first taste of this majestic wilderness area.

Katie Ryan, the center’s program director, leads us on to the trail which parallels the Little North Santiam River. Our wilderness education begins soon after we leave the parking area. “What four things does a person need to survive?” queries Ryan. (She asks the kids lots of questions like this, engaging them while educating them.) After a couple of comic false starts – Games Boys are determined to be optional survival items – the kids, ranging in age from 2 to 16, manage to come up with these four necessities: air, water, food and shelter Then Ryan tells us about the “Rule of 3”: A person can survive (generally), says Ryan, three minutes without air, three hours without shelter, three days without water and three weeks without food.

We arrive at Gold Creek and Ryan takes a moment to talk about the area’s history – how it was mined extensively but that gold was never actually found. We see the entrances to two mining shafts and glance in (cool – but scary!). Ryan also uses the stop at Gold Creek to discuss when water is safe to drink – and how to make it so, by boiling it for three minutes, using iodine pills or bringing a compact water filter with you as you hike.

We stop for lunch and then continue on our hike until we reach Jawbone Flats. While we’d viewed photos of this tiny burg, seeing it in person transports us back to the 1930s. There’s a rustic lodge and several cabins – some new, some refurbished – all set against a backdrop of towering evergreens.

After a leisurely break during which we claim our bedrooms and freshen up, we meet back in the lodge’s dining hall for an orientation to Jawbone Flats and an introduction to the afternoon’s events. We hike a short ways up the Little North Fork of the Santiam River to the area where we’ll learn about shelter building and knot tying. I discover (once again) that my kids are much more adept at survival skills than I. We learn (painstakingly, in my case) how to make several types of knots – taut line, bowlin, figure eight – that will aid us in our shelter making efforts. Each of the family groups puts their heads together to create shelters made with a tarp and four lengths of rope. We all come up with what look like livable, if not elaborate, temporary homes.

We have free time before dinner and most of the group decide to head to “the slides” for a swim. Just a 10 minute hike from Jawbone Flats, “the slides” are so named due to the natural, smooth-rocked area that the water of the Little North Fork of the Santiam River has carved out over millennia. It’s a cool oasis on this sweltering day (we’ve chosen the hottest, most humid weekend of the summer for this trip) and the kids (and adults!) cascade down the rocks over and over.
After a scrumptious meal in the lodge dining hall, we gather outside around the camp fire for another seminar, this one on Wilderness Medicine. Topics include what to do about dehydration and hypothermia, and again the kids have good answers – and questions. We head back to our cabin and play a little Trivial Pursuit before we turn in for the night.

The next morning, early risers enjoy the soothing calm of complete silence before a breakfast fit for a lumberjack. Then we make up our sack lunches with the sandwich fixings provided, pack up our gear and load it onto the shuttle that will bring it back to our parked cars.
Next we head out on another trek up Opal Creek with staff member Lynne Whitbeck leading us. Our topic for the morning is medicinal and edible plants and Whitbeck stops frequently to point out the many plants that are more than ornamental. Pearly everlasting, for example, was used by Native Americans for diarrhea and as a poultice for sores and burns. The yew tree has yielded cancer treatments. And, on a more practical level, the soft, large leaves of the thimbleberry plant are dubbed “nature’s toilet paper.”

After our introduction to medicinal plants, we’re ready to say goodbye to Jawbone Flats and hike the three miles to our cars. My husband and I declare the weekend a resounding success: Any time you can get teenagers to spend two days in the natural world – and away from their virtual worlds of iPods and the Internet – it’s a treat.

Spending that time in one of the northwest’s most beautiful settings is icing on the cake.

If You Go:

While the activities associated with the family workshops at Opal Creek Ancient Forest Center are geared toward children ages 6 and up, if a family has younger kids, they’re welcome to bring them. Visit www.opalcreek.org or call 503-892-2782 for more information.

Marie Sherlock is the editor of Metro Parent.

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