| Interpretive Program |
 |
|
 |
| Free Guided Programs |
|
The new Tillamook Forest Center offers fascinating exhibits, outdoor trails, progams for families and students, along with recreational information for forest visitors. Enthusiastic staff provide programs and information that will help you discover the clues to the forest’s past, revealing the context for its management today, as well as understanding its wealth of natural history. Across the forest, a network of interpretive sites, media and opportunities also provides an engaging way for you to "discover the Tillamook."
Please click the link below for a schedule of interpretive programs available at the Tillamook Forest Center and around the forest.
Tillamook Forest Center Programs
Do you have a group that enjoys the outdoors and would like to learn more about the Tillamook State Forest? Special arrangements can be made for your group. Call to schedule a program at least two weeks in advance of your planned program date. Group size is limited to 15. For more information contact Gail Barnhart, Oregon Department of Forestry: 503-815-6808; or email gbarnhart@odf.state.or.us
|
| Early Tourists |
|
|
|
Early tourists enjoy the forest
|
Early Visitors Discover An Ancient Forest
Before the infamous Tillamook fires consumed the ancient forest that once grew here, adventurous visitors discovered the forest by traveling the Wilson River Wagon Road first by horse-drawn stage, and later by early automobile. Their journey was through the heart of a pristine wilderness punctuated by an occasional homestead, fishing camp or boarding house. A trip through to Tillamook was generally a two day excursion, with a stop overnight at one of the boarding houses. The nearby Wilson River provided summer sojourners a camper’s and angler’s paradise.
The Tillamook Burn left little opportunity to enjoy the once beautiful forest, leaving in its place hundreds of thousands of acres of dead trees and blackened landscape. The following generation of Oregonians discovered a different forest - one that seemed hopelessly devastated. A drive to the coast over either of the newly-constructed Wilson River or Sunset highways provided a painful reminder of the beauty lost. As much as people were heartbroken at the sight of the bleak scenery, they also determined that healing could begin with hard work from many helping hands.
Between the 1950’s and 1970’s students and youth groups came from Tillamook and Washington counties, and the Portland area to pitch in with professional tree planters and others to help reforest the land. As they planted trees, volunteer citizens and children of all ages were discovering what it takes to make a forest.
|
| Re-discovering the Tillamook |
|
Today, you are invited to re-discover this young, thriving forest which provides many new opportunities for recreation and learning. A great place to start your adventure is the keystone visitor center--the Tillamook Forest Center.
Information kiosks, orientation and interpretive signs, and naturalist-guided walks and talks are some of the features you’ll find as you travel around the forest.
|
| Interpretive Waysides / Trails |
|
The Gales Creek Overlook invites you to stop and gaze over the revitalized forest near the eastern entry to the Tillamook Forest on the Wilson River Highway (Highway 6). This site features an expansive view of a relatively young Douglas-fir forest, planted in the 1940’s after the fires scorched nearly the entire original forest. A few remnant forest giants still stand in view along the distant ridges, reminding us of what the forest was like before that fateful day in 1933. A cedar-constructed kiosk with adjacent stone walls complements the view here, while presenting orientation information and an overview of forest history and management.
|
| Sunset Rest Area (Hwy 26) |
|
|
|
Sunset Highway Rest Area Display
|
The Sunset Safety Rest Area, adjacent to the Clatsop State Forest on Highway 26, offers a display on the history of the forests and the adjacent one-third-mile Steam Donkey Interpretive Trail. The short interpretive trail loop provides an interesting history of railroad and steam logging and a refreshing pause when traveling the Sunset Highway from the Portland area to the coast.
|
|
|
|
