Round-trip Distance: 4.2 miles

After a three class series at REI about backpacking we bought all our equipment and went on our first trip.

We sold our popup camper and double stroller to pay for equipment. Also, we had to kick in a little extra.

To help find hikes we purchased the book, One Night Wilderness: Portland, by Douglas Lorain. We’ve since done a few hikes from the book and I highly recommend it. The driving direction are pretty good, however some directions are a bit different since the book was written a few years ago.

The first trip we chose was the North Fork Salmonberry River Trail. The trail was relatively simple. It felt like we hiked in on an old logging road that was above the river. So it wasn’t all that scenic, since the trail was carved out of the side of a hill. So below was the river and to the left was the side of a hill. Perfect for the first hike, no way to get lost. There were a couple of “crossings”, one a rocky crossing we had to go slow and one a water crossing which got my feet wet as I carried the kids. We found out what trekking poles were used for. We highly recommend this investment!

Since this was our first trip, we just ate freeze dried meals. Chili which was spicy for the kids and a Curry Couscous which was really good, but spicy for the kids. Breakfast was Oatmeal which was grand and then we tried a granola and milk meal, which wasn’t that great. Will liked it, but I did not.

We went at the end of April hoping to see the salmon run, but the kids weren’t enthused enough to wait and getting down to the water was tough. So no Salmon sightings for us, but there was a lot of rock throwing in the river.

Alltrails Info: http://alltrails.com/trail/us/oregon/salmonberry-river-beaver-slide-road-to-the-nehalem-river