September 25, the day before my birthday promised to be a lovely Indian summer day, and all the myriad domestic duties just couldn’t keep me out of the woods! It was late in the morning when I finally got off on highway 26 and headed into the Coast range. Turning south on the Salmonberry Road, I had soon crested Coyote Corner passing groups of hunters target shooting in preparation for the opening of hunting season. Further in, past Camp Nine, I would pass the discreetly parked cars of the bow hunters along the lip of the Salmonberry Canyon. But I was going further down – all the way to the bottom of the North Fork of the Salmonberry – or at least as far down as I could in my Odyssey.
Surprisingly the North Fork Salmonberry Road is much gentler in grade and smoother than the infamous Beaver Slide Road. About 2.75 miles beyond “Camp Nine”, I parked the car in a small meadow just as the road turned northwards into a series of switchbacks that descended 1.5 miles and 725 feet in elevation down into the North Fork of the Salmonberry.
At the bottom, I followed the old track (the road has long since been washed out) that remains thanks to the elk that travel 1.4 mile along the North Fork of the Salmonberry down to reach the confluence with the main stem of the Salmonberry. In parts it’s a “linear scramble” where fallen trees, landslides and eroded banks have obliterated the original road grade.
At the end of this trail sits a beautiful little clearing situated at the apex of the two valley and overlooking the Salmonberry about 50 feet below. A trail leads around the crest of the promontory down to the rocky beach marking the confluence of the North Fork of the Salmonberry with the main stem of the river.
Across the river a rough track leads up the embankment and connects with a side rail spur that goes around Tunnel 29. You can follow the rail spur in either direction to rejoin the main track. The distance to the Beaver Slide Roads is about 2 miles, or about an hour’s walk. Heading west it’s a 12.4 mile trudge to the intersection with the Nehalem River and the next road.
The sense of isolation is pretty palpable as you enter the Salmonberry River. Perhaps its the steep hillsides that block the sun, the long climb to any navigable road, or the evidence of recent malevolent power visible everywhere you look along this savage river canyon.
I grow fearful as I stare upon mansion-sized log jams, see huge boulders tossed carelessly into the forests, and gaze upon old growth tree trunks torn from their foundations and crushed beneath the pressure of the surging water. I can imagine the roar of the river’s rage as the winds whips through the churning spew of molten mud, heaving boulders and cartwheeling trees. In the midst of this wild chaos, the mountains released their own tumultuous contributions as the surging streams and collapsing hillsides poured their earth, rocks and trees upon the roiling torrent. 
Just imagining the utter brutality of nature’s rage makes me feel insignificant and helplessness as I tiptoe up this ravaged canyon expecting at any moment that some huge force will wrench the world around and crush me like some inconsequential ant.
Each detour between the river’s gargantuan boulders, each slippery traverse across clinging elk trails, each dark and muddy tunnel distorts the time and distance covered and unravels my reasons for being here, at all. I struggle on through the foreboding isolation, picking my way through the twisted iron carnage, feeling the minutes unraveling like a rope from which I dangle. Each bend in the river is a tedious obstacle course I have to retrace, each detour into the tangled undergrowth another scramble added to my retreat, and each minute spent walking deeper into the encroaching shade will guarantee more gloom for my long ascent. I feel a surging tide of isolation as I survey a final broken bank of fallen rocks and earth entangled in a twisted skein of iron rails. 
From the gloom seeping down the forested canyon walls I sense a vague danger, some forest consciousness warning me that my trespass is becoming intolerable… and I turn back to follow the receding sun, and to climb up the canyon walls even as the suns slips quietly up ahead of me. Even as I regain the heights and the shadows fall in step with me, I know the forest has relinquished its malevolence and is once again enfolding me in the dark golden afterglow that baths the forest floor on one of the last days of summer.
