Crooked Creek Hike
From Oregon Hikers Field Guide
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- Start point: Mill Trailhead
- Ending point: Crooked Creek Third Crossing
- Hike type: In and out
- Distance: 6.0 miles
- Elevation gain: 830 feet
- High point: 5,715 feet
- Difficulty: Easy
- Seasons: All year
- Family Friendly: Yes
- Backpackable: Yes
- Crowded: No
Contents |
Hike Description
The easternmost section of the Fremont National Recreation Trail #160 begins at the Mill Trailhead north of Lakeview, following Crooked Creek for a few miles. This description takes you along the first three of those miles, following a road constructed in the 1920s. You’ll pass the site of an old sawmill and hike below rocky bluffs and through lush meadows before reaching two more crossings of Crooked Creek. The grade is always gentle, and this is a good family hike, with wildflowers an extra bonus in early summer.
Hike past the trailhead sign to reach Crooked Creek. A log bridge for hikers spans the creek to your left. The trail/roadbed follows the north bank of the creek until you reach another crossing. Here follow the trail up to the right unless you want to take the roadbed and ford the creek. The trail drops to a bench of ponderosa pine, cottonwood, and mountain mahogany, with the thickly shaded creek running to your right. Look for an interesting collection of rusting cans, maybe an old garbage dump, on your left. Aspen and willow form part of this riparian thicket. A spring flows onto the trail. Half a mile from the trailhead, you’ll reach a grassy flat, the Crooked Creek Lumber Company Mill Site. Only a few old foundations remain from the mill, which operated in the 1920s and 1930s. An interpretive sign details the history of logging in Lake County.
Continuing up the old road, you’ll see more wildflowers blooming, including mule’s ears, columbine, penstemon, geranium, dogbane, lupine, and fleabane. Bulbous bluegrass, an alien species, seems to have colonized the entire roadbed. Swallowtails, checkerspots, coppers, blues, and whites flit along a shady alley way of cottonwood, willow, alder, and choke cherry. Whole clusters of these butterflies stop to sip from mud seeps on the trail. A steep logging road branches right to cross Crooked Creek. Rocky slopes of juniper and mountain mahogany spill down to the trail, and soon you’ll pass through a defile where the valley narrows to a small gorge.
A colony of aspen rustles next to the creek, and you’ll pass a lush meadow where checkermallow and camas bloom while willows crowd the watercourse. A slope of ponderosa pine and juniper rises to the left, the grassy expanses also blooming with desert parsley and paintbrush in early summer. You’ll arrive at Crooked Creek again (the culvert that used to be here has been removed) and may be able to step across it or use a log.
Pass across a lush camas meadow. Where a road leads up to the right, bear left to cross Big Cove Creek to reach a ponderosa parkland which has seen some recent thinning, resulting in scattered slash piles. The trail angles left down to Crooked Creek again where it braids under alders. This is a good turnaround point.
If you do wish to continue up the trail for a longer hike, you’ll be presented with three confusing options after you cross the braided creek. A well used cow trail is to the left; in the middle is a path marked with white diamonds that heads up a bluff (the correct route); to the right is an NRT badge which incorrectly marks an abandoned route along the creek.
Fees, Regulations, etc.
- Information kiosk at trailhead
- No camping at trailhead
- Share trail with bikes and horses
Maps
- Maps: Hike Finder
- U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service: Lakeview Ranger District
- U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service: Fremont National Forest
- Pacific Northwest Recreation Map Series: The Oregon Outback
- Pacific Northwest Recreation Map Series: Hart Mountain Country
Trip Reports
- Search Trip Reports for Crooked Creek Hike
Related Discussions / Q&A
- Search Trail Q&A for Crooked Creek Hike
Guidebooks that cover this destination
- 100 Hikes/Travel Guide: Eastern Oregon by William L. Sullivan
More Links
- Fremont National Recreation Trail #160 – Southern (USFS)
- Crooked Creek - 07/20/2020 (wanderingyuncks)
- Bull Prairie & Crooked Cr Sections of Crane Mt NRT (dirtmagnet)
- Fremont Tier (Oregon Timber Trail)
- Wildflower Hiking of Crooked Creek (Flora Northwest)
Page Contributors
- bobcat (creator)