Gifford Pinchot National Forest — Attraction in Hood River

From Skate Creek Road just past Ashford towards Mount Rainier is the 52, a 23 mile journey, to Packwood. Now bear in mind, Packwood is a town in the middle of the Forrest and what I consider a destination. We made it to Packwood on Saturday of Memorial Day weekend for the flea market (I'll save that review for another time) and planned to go again on Monday, Memorial Day. We never made it. We enjoy taking the roads less traveled and found ourselves in awe of the utter beauty of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest so much so that we took a turn here, a turn there and got ourselves lost. Lost in a very good way!

There's many a logging road on the drive to Packwood along highway 52 and those roads have no names, addresses or cabins. We found ourselves up to the snow line in no time and as warm as it was, we didn't need our heavy winter coats thank goodness! We saw waterfalls both big and small, had to stop to rock hound at a few sites. I'm a lover of rocks and the opportunity to find some neat rocks in areas of the beaten track were plentiful. We saw lots of mushrooms but not being too knowledgeable about them, we left them alone. Good thing we did because we found out later that one needs a permit for foraging!

If you plan on driving these roads I would suggest you fill your gas tank in Ashford because there's no other station for 83 miles. There's gas in Packwood but after driving for miles on different logging roads, we didn't find any that led to Packwood so it's a good thing to be prepared with fuel and food just in case.

Many people love to travel the world but forget to take the short day trips found in their own backyards. This drive is an hour from our home and transforms you to a whole different world where there's no traffic, both vehicular or pedestrian (once you get off the main road), no fast food joints, no television and no cell phone reception. I guarantee you won't miss those...

Gifford Pinchot National Forest is one of the best Forest Service areas in the nation. Rimmed by 3 incredible volcanoes, Mt Rainier, Mt St. Helens and my favorite, Mt Adam, the National Forest is a true gem. With the mighty Columbia River to the south, and the both border of the forest shared with the Snoqualmie National Forest, recreation here abounds. GPNF is a great place for hikes, multi-day back packing, cycling, exploring, waterfall watching, OHV riding, dual sport riding and horseback riding. With many campgrounds throughout the park, as well as hundreds of dispersed camping areas, weekend car camps of overnighters with a small backpack are idyllic here. Berry picking, mushrooming and even firewood collection are allowed with a free permit that you can get online. Coupled with the awesomeness of GPNF and equally important are the Forest Service staff that look after this great place. Without their knowledge and expertise about this forest we might not ever know some of the amazing places this forest has to offer. So here we are! An amazing place, staffed by amazing people and named after an amazing person, Gifford Pinchot. Make a visit to the Forest Service Office in the town of Randle. It's a great jumping off point to the Forest. If you haven't had an experience at GPNF, the folks at that office can set you off in the right...

Camped here for three nights. Living in Colorado I thought I had seen some cool forests but this place is crazy beautiful. We stayed in an old growth area that had trees over 600 years old and almost 200 feet. It was so peaceful and quite and well taken care of. There is so much brush and downed trees you can barely see your neighbors. We were at Iron Creek Campground loop A. Folks around us were respectful of each other except one lot did have a campfire. Yeah. All of the west coast is on fire and these folks just can’t go without a fire in a total burn ban. Anyway the only other thing that was in issue was the pit toilets. We’ve camped for decades and have used a lot of pit toilets but these were truly the worst we have ever smelled. We used them one time and one time only. We used our porta potty for the rest of our stay. Even walking past them was just awful. I felt bad for the folks camped near them. Anyway, lots of good hiking trails and great scenery. Wasn’t too much of a drive to St. Helens from there either. We will be back to do some...