Nick Hodges on the Kalmiopsis Rim. Photo by Chloe Grimes
Summer is a-comin' and the spring hiking season could be narrow considering hotter, dryer longterm outlooks for the American West. Here are some must-do hikes for the spring of 2025. But before you head out, brush up on your Leave No Trace principles and if you've got a pooch, check out these tips before heading out.
East Fork Illinois. Photo by Chloe Grimes.
We also have available our interactive map which is updated monthly.
Retention work on the East Fork Illinois. Photo by Nick Hodges
Osgood Ditch and East Fork Illinois
Get the Wild Rivers District Map and head out to the East Fork Illinois River via the Osgood Ditch Trail. Head up the East Fork and revel in the shade of Volkswagon-width Port Orford Cedars as you climb toward Young's Valley.
View from the East Fork Illinois
This trail is the Illinois Valley entry into the Siskiyou Wilderness Area and connects to a complex of trails that extends to Gasquet and Happy Camp, CA.
East Fork Illinois River by Trevor Meyer
Flows are dropping, making a ford of the East Fork safe, but certainly wet. Crews maintained the trail from Osgood to the junction with the Sanger Creek Trail. Beyond there to Young's Valley is passable, but brushy and indistinct in some places.
Photo by Trevor Meyer
Middle Fork National Recreation Trail
Volunteers brought this all-but-abandoned national recreation trail back to life this winter and spring, servicing it from the lower trailhead to where it ties into the Frog Pond Trail. It still needs attention from there to its upper terminus.
Volunteers on the Middle Fork
From the lower trailhead, you'll be greeted by a forested canyon that meanders up the Middle Fork and intersects with a road near the Frog Pond Trailhead. Continue on to Frog Pond and Cameron Meadows, or chart another course into the Red Buttes Wilderness.
Pick up the Siskiyou Mountains Ranger District map and head out.
Kalmiopsis Rim
Start from the Babyfoot Lake Trailhead and hike south on the Kalmiopsis Rim Trail for views that extend into the wildest slice of the Oregon coast range. Scale the narrow side trail to Canyon Peak and get water at Cold Springs.
Sunset from the Kalmiopsis Rim by Chloe Grimes
From there, drop into the Little Chetco or continue south on the Kalmiopsis Rim to Doe Gap to Vulcan Lake, a trailhead about 25 miles from Brookings, OR.
Across the Kalmiopsis by Leah Doeden
Along the way from Babyfoot, you'll find a menagerie of wildflowers and a few groves of old growth before entering into a Mars-like plane of peridotite cobble that extends all the way to Vulcan Lake.
You never know what you might find in the Kalmiopsis Wilderness. Photo by Chloe Grimes.
Pick up the Kalmiopsis map set and find a route of your own.
York Butte Trail
There are few views out there as commanding as from the top of York Butte, tucked just outside the northeast corner of the 180,000-acre Kalmiopsis Wilderness Area. It provides a panoramic glimpse into what the world here would have looked like before European settlers, hardly a road cut in site.
View from York Butte. Photo by Nick Hodges.
A mosaic canvas of blackened forests, iron-rich soils, interspersed with stands of primeval woods spreads as far as the eye can see, the winding path of the Wild & Scenic Illinois falling just underneath your feet.
On the way up the moderate 2.5-mile trail you'll find an equally impressive spread of wildflowers. Crews maintained this trail last September. Pick up the Kalmiopsis map set and head out today.