Calendar

Past Activity

Willamette Confluence Preserve

  • Start date: 05/11/2019

  • Start time: 12:00 AM

  • End date: 05/11/2019

  • End time: 11:59 PM

Description:

The Willamette Confluence features extensive habitats that are endangered in the Willamette Valley, including six miles of river corridor, floodplain forest, wetlands, upland oak woodlands and native prairie. The Nature Conservancy is working with partners to reconnect the river to its historic floodplain across 20 ponds in this former gravel mining site. This 6-mile, 3-hour walking tour (9AM-12PM) with volunteer docents (and other community members, up to 24 on tour) will take us around the preserve. Tour will include some steep uphill and downhill sections, walking on uneven ground, and crossing a slow flowing creek that may be up to a foot deep.
Participants : no one under 18 per Confluence regulation

  • Event Leader: Jorry Rolfe

  • Event Leader Phone: 541-206-9501

  • Event Leader Email: jorry.rolfe@gmail.com

  • Assistant Leader: Kay Coots

  • Event category: Trips

  • Area Type: Urban

  • Departure Location: Lane Community College, parking lot nearest stoplight

  • Rating: Moderate

  • Roundtrip total drive miles: 6

  • Season: 2019

  • Permits Required:

  • Event Status: Passed

  • Supplies and Equipment Required: Water. Dress for weather and have boots.

  • participant prerequisites:

  • Conditions:

  • Total Distance: 6

  • Member Fees: 1

  • Elevation Gain: 300

  • Non-Member Fees: 2

  • Committee: Trips

  • Junior member fees: —

Trip Report

Our six-mile, three-hour hike was with docent, John Helman, who led us from the Native Plant Nursery through the central and northern portions of this 1,305 acre Preserve. Acquired from the Wildish family in 2010, it is where the Middle and Coast forks of the Willamette River join and is otherwise closed to the public. Throughout the morning, John introduced us to the history and heritage of the area and how it came to be purchased and preserved by the Nature Conservancy. We stopped to view a restored oak savanna where major invasive species and been eradicated. This savanna is named the Stand By Me meadow—this location was used in the movie—and nearby was the site decades ago for a dance hall, long gone. The Seavey Kienzle farmstead remnants could barely be seen through the trees, and we were told that the Warm Springs Tribe used to come here and help the family with the hops harvest in the early 1900s. After walking awhile on what was once a haul road, John told us about the excavation and sculpting work done five years ago by BCI Contracting, wetlands restoration experts, who transformed 20 former riverside gravel mining pits into ponds. They now provide miles of habitat for turtles, fish, and other aquatic animals and plants. We especially enjoyed seeing several ponds on the floodplain near the Middle Fork of the Willamette River which have been reconnected to the river via a BCI-dug inlet. We enjoyed a break there where BCI engineered a log jam, fortifying the bank against erosion. On the return hike, we walked near Ski and Mile Long ponds to view a impressive area of lovely lupine smelling like a warm spring day.