Beazell Forest

Just up hwy 223 (from the junction of hwy 20, just west of Philomath) is Beazell Memorial Forest. Hidden under the trees are mushrooms, ferns, streams and several miles of lovely hiking paths.

Signs of the recent floods were obvious, and water still ran down many of the steeper paths. We very much enjoyed our trip into the fog and ferns, and Pocket is still sleeping off her eager romp. With a hill steep enough to warm my core and work up a sweat, you can be sure we'll be back again soon.

Do you have a favorite trailhead near enough your house for frequent day trips?

A Great Hike Near Corvallis

Fitton Green Natural Area is just gorgeous! We're currently staying at a house at the top left of this map and can walk right to this trailhead. To avoid having all the farmdogs follow us, we drive however. If we had a hankering, we could hike or bike all the way from Wren to Corvallis. We hiked to the bottom of that green portion, past the 'panorama parking' and to the vista loop. It was a foggy day and we ended up hiking up into a low cloud without much of a view of Mary's Peak. It was still gorgeous and we found plenty of cool critters to satisfy our explorer natures.

Part of our hike was along the Allen Throop Trail. Clearly, Pocket wanted to do some reading up on this important dude. If you're parking at the Panorama lot, the above plaque and below tree and vista are just up the loop. If we weren't stuck in a cloud, i think there'd be a nice view of Mary's Peak, Philomath and Corvallis plus the surrounding farms and hills.

Back down the trail we finally spotted some wildlife! Some very, very, very slow moving wildlife....

I just love giant Oregon banana slugs! And super cool snails just can't be beat. We haven't seen any really huge slugs yet, but you can be sure i'll post pictures when we do! Hopefully they'll have spots. Can you tell i'm a bug/reptile/crawly obsessed girl? Yes, i was a tom boy.

This is a really great natural area for anyone looking for some wilderness. We only crossed paths with a small handful of folks, many had dogs. The trail is great for dogs. It's technically leash required, but Pocket knows no boundaries! Actually, she's very well behaved with excellent recall skills, so i feel confident with her off leash. We put her on when crossing other dogs, just to be polite, but i know i have control over her so feel okay with 'breaking the rules.' There are several trailheads to this natural area that are accommodating to downtowners, country folk, or passers through. If you're looking for a nice natural hike near Corvallis, this one can't be beat! FYI, we hiked for about 3 hours and i'm not sure how many miles, as they are not marked, and we stuck to a brisk pace.

Have you hiked this trail? What did you think of it?

This post can be found at the Simple Lives Thursday blog hop.