I'm assuming this botanic area no longer is officially such but I am going to find it this Summer. It is said to contain the furthest North native sugar pine trees.
The Rhododendron Ridge Trail passes East of the area. Less than a mile South of Graham Pass is an abandoned trail which headed due West into the former Sugar Pine Botanic Area. Has anyone investigated that old trail? It is on the 1946 Mount Hood National Forest map.
Decades ago my wife passed down that trail on horseback with her father, then a forest service ranger. They passed some sugar pines along it. She remembered them being the size of large ponderosa pines. He stated that the big sugar pines were further South from the trail.
LOTS of logging in that area. The Hidden Wilderness booklet mentions sugar pines in BOTW too so it must be that area straddling the Willamette NF. I've looked for that trail near 63 but the area is just too torn up. Maybe a segment or 2 may exist between the many clearcuts...
A good tack is to check Google Maps satellite view. You can really zoom in and find if your trail may still exist. It does take some time and research switching back and forth between the 40s though! But worth it IMO. And then to find the map was wayyy off to begin with. O the fun of lost history.
Bryon,
I went in to the Sugar Pine Botanical area on FS6380, last summer in hopes of fulfill my dream of large cones; it has been logged. The trees that are there were 10' to 12' tall. I had also looked on google, but I went anyway. We ended up on Elk Lake Creek trail #559 and then on to trail #554 Welcome Lakes. We had to turn around just short of the lake due to foot issues. We did see a few small sugar pine cones. Now that FR63 is open again I hope to go back in the area and look again. Graham Pass is a beautiful drive though.
Patti
Patti,
I was up the Collawash yesterday for a drive and decided to see if I could find that Sugar Pine tree I had told you about near the Elk Lake Creek trailhead. I am sorry to say that it is now a snag. It appears to have died sometime ago, for most of it's bark has come off except at the base. I looked for cones in vain, but did pick up a piece of bark with it's puzzle piece pattern similiar to Ponderosa Pine. I hadn't seen the tree for over 20 years, and it must have died shortly after I had seen it last. I looked for others in the area, but only found some Western White Pine trees, which have similiar needles, but differ in the cones and bark.