Eugene to Crest and More

October 3-4, 2026

29 miles, 7544’ elevation gain

The plan was to hike out from the Lowell end of the Eugene to Crest trail, overnight hammock camp, and then hike back out. In the end, there was a lot of “Plan B” involved, starting with passing up the planned trailhead due to a dubious long-term camp and ending with a complete failure on the camping front. So it goes.

I had planned to leave from the Lowell end of the Eugene to Crest Trail, on FR 5821 north of Lookout Point Reservoir not far from Ivan Oakes campground. But when I got there, someone had set up housekeeping in the parking area. Now perhaps they are just down on their luck, but the trash and beaten-down RV did not inspire me with confidence for safe parking, so I drove a few miles further to where the trail crosses FR 5823 and found a small pullout to park in. That shaved a few miles off the plan, but there are plenty of interconnected trails here so I wasn’t worried. I hit the trail just about 5AM, hiking by headlamp over ground I’d covered before.

A bit less than half a mile through the forest put me on FR 108, which the route follows uphill. 108 is a graveled road but it hasn’t been maintained for traffic, and there are plenty of trees starting to obstruct it. Over the next three-quarters of a mile or so this road climbs 500 feet to the ridgeline between the Winberry Creek and Willamette rivers, which the trail broadly follows.

Here it was back into the forest. Though it’s close to a ridgeline, this trail offers very little in the way of view - there are occasional glimpses down into one river valley or the other, but mostly it’s unburned trees all the way, with a heavy understory of salal, ferns, mosses, Oregon grape, and so on. Although the wildflowers are almost all gone, the fungi are back, and I took plenty of mushroom photos over the course of the hike. If you want peace and (mostly) quiet it’s a good route; apart from the train noises from time to time, I was alone here.

The next 3.5 miles are a series of short hill climbs and descents, with 800 feet of elevation gain leading (paradoxically) to one of the low points for the day. From here it turns from “ups and downs” to “mostly up” for the next three and a half miles, gaining about 2000 feet in elevation as the trail makes its way across to and then up Tire Mountain (and turns, formally, from the Winberry Divide Trail to the Tire Mountain Trail along the way, though both segments are part of the Eugene to Crest route).

Shortly after the intersection with the Cloverpatch Trail, I crossed an unnamed tributary of Winberry Creek on a well-constructed bridge. I stopped here to fill a couple of empty water bottles so I’d have enough to make it through the day. This was the last well-flowing water on the route to my campsite, though I did pass a couple of trickles a bit further up Tire Mountain.

I skipped the Tire Mountain summit trail, knowing from past experience that the lack of views from the top does not make up for climbing the poorly-maintained trail. Instead I stopped for lunch just past the summit trail where a small wildfire made a clear area, and the continued another couple of more or less level miles past a series of small rocky meadows and cliffs to the intersection with the Alpine Trail. A right-hand turn and a mile and a half downhill took me to the Buckhead Shelter, where I planned to spend the night.

Setting up camp went smoothly, though I had to work a bit to get the hammock up because I’d forgotten a bit of rigging - shows how rusty I am at this, given that I used to hammock camp a couple of times a month. I relaxed for a few hours, made up some dinner, and watched the bike riders heading down the trail towards Westfir (there were at least a dozen of them who went by in the couple of hours before dark). Presently I was all snuggled into the hammock for the night.

Or at least I thought I was, but here things started to go sideways again. Sideways or otherwise, I simply could not find a comfortable position to sleep in, and my pain level continued to ramp up. Decreased flexibility and increased joint issues over the past however many years may, I suspect, have taken hammock camping off the table for me. It was certainly not a winner this time. After an hour I gave up. If it had been simply a matter of waiting out a sleepless night I might have stayed, but it was becoming evident to me that if I spent many more hours in the hammock I’d be in no condition to hike, sleepless or otherwise.

So, I gave in to the inevitable, got up, brewed a cup of coffee, took some ibuprofen, and broke camp. It was around 8PM and full dark when I turned on the headlamp and hit the trail again. I decided to shave a bunch of hill climbing off at the cost of a longer walk, and headed downhill on FR 683 (which is just a short bushwhack from the shelter). This took me to the Cloverpatch Connector, then a stretch of road walk, the Cloverpatch Trail, and then back up to the Tire Mountain Trail, which I followed back to where I’d parked. So in the end, this was about 22 hours in the woods, which was nice, but still not the backpacking experience I’d hoped for.

Not sure what I’m going to do at this point. I hammock camped for years, but if this night was any indication that’s not an option for the future. My last ground camping almost worked, so maybe I should try to find and fix the sleeping pad leak and take another shot at it, despite the extra gear volume that requires. Or perhaps I should just give in to the inevitable and limit myself to day hikes. After all, if I can cover 30 miles in a (long) day, that gives me plenty of options around here.

GPX track at CalTopo

Typical green view for the day. This is on the Winberry Trail but could have been most anywhere along the way.