Michael Edwards

By Michael Edwards

The rusty Jeep creeps around potholes deep and wide enough to bathe a Sasquatch family in. A windowless Winnebago with a hot pink penis Kryloned onto its aluminum siding and an incinerated Toyota MR2 languish together on the brushy, broken glass-littered shoulder. As the road to wilderness bliss steepens, a momma pit bull hooked to a metal chain pounces over a sword fern, lets out a guttural bark, and runs laps around the Jeep. The dog dodges a boat motor and bounds through a blackberry thicket down a ravine.

Like mycelium infiltrating a hemlock snag, bureaucratic indifference  and empty federal coffers have conspired to undermine the Siuslaw National Forest’s once vaunted road building ethos. Without federally funded road maintenance, visitors may lose a tooth filling bouncing along the torturous road to the Drift Creek Wilderness trailhead, but thankfully, if your old Toyota 4×4 barely manages, that log truck hasn’t a chance. Eight months of rain grows massive trees and liquifies untended roads. Whether it’s the road to Harts Cove, The Valley of the Giants, or Drift Creek Wilderness, a fortress of mud, boulders, and stumps are methodically walling off some of the Siuslaw’s last remaining old-growth cathedrals.

On the last quarter-mile stretch of Forest Road 346 I whack my head on the roll bar and the keys fall out of the ignition. Evidently, ‘98 Jeep Wranglers don’t require keys in the ignition to run. Wincing, I putter into the trailhead lot and remove a cedar branch from the radiator. Taking a drink, I recall Dana Johnson’s 2021 Wilderness Watch article, Wilderness and the Value of Doing Nothing. With the exception of shooting the barred owls who are filling the ecological niche created by the Forest Service and its timber industry coconspirators, the agency appears to have taken Dana’s thesis to heart.

A shade dizzy, but safely beyond the pit bull’s lair, I venture out.

The Drift Creek Wilderness is one of four small, federally designated “pocket” Wilderness areas located in the soggy, heavily-logged Oregon Coast Range. The Wilderness is 5,798 acres of old-growth temperate rainforest that, due to its extra steep terrain, was spared the predations of President Ronald Reagan’s U.S. Forest Service road engineers and big timber fellers.

The Harris Ranch Trail is the primary footpath into the Wilderness. The warm-up section of the trail was cut eighty years ago, and today is shaded by healthy Douglas firs and western hemlocks. 1950s clear cuts—before the Air Force’s Agent Orange surpluses were shipped from the Mekong Delta to Oregon—weren’t chased by aerial herbicide baths, burning, and precision planting of Douglas fir seedlings. This second-growth forest is pleasantly unruly; a testament to the forest’s ability to regenerate. One hundred and twenty inches of annual precipitation over eight decades covers up a lot of scars.

A half-mile into the darkening forest, the Halloween mask textured lichen, Lobaria oregana, and a wooden Drift Creek Wilderness sign nailed high up on an old Douglas fir, safely above whittling range, welcome visitors to the ancient forest.

A pair of ravens tumble and croak above the forest canopy. A breeze blows sawdust from a piliated woodpecker’s rectangular excavation. A forest wren flits in the salal at the base of a centuries-old Douglas fir. The behemoth’s missing crown provides prime nesting habitat for vanishing northern spotted owls.

Every year since 2018, I have returned to the Drift Creek Wilderness, taken photos of big trees, and shared the photos with friends and family.

The conversations go something like this:

“Hmm. Is that a big tree?”

“Yes. Doesn’t it look big?”

“I guess.”

A two-dimensional digital representation of the base of the giant fir can never replace a quiet walk into the forest. 

At the bottom of the canyon the tea-colored creek tumbles over bedrock. An American dipper dives into the clean current and resurfaces with a mayfly larvae clenched in its beak. A crayfish settles into a kolk and picks at a trout’s delicious corpse. From its alder perch, a kingfisher surveys her watery realm and flies low over the gurgling channel. Her metallic chatter fades as she rounds the bend.  

I slide my feet into the cool, rain-fed creek and open Ed Abbey’s The Monkey Wrench Gang to the bookmark on page 53. An hour and a half later, I awake to drool on page 55 and a sunburnt knot on my bald head.

The walk back to the vehicle is uphill. On a wooden platform bordered by skunk cabbage I run into a couple of New York City birders, the first people I’ve seen on this lovely summer afternoon.

“You from here?”

“Yes, I live north of here, in Lincoln City.”

“We lost $100 dollars or so the other night in Lincoln City, at the Chinook Winds or whatevah. It’s tough to see birds here through all of these big goddamned trees.”

“It is, but keep looking. They’re out there. Stay away from those Wonder Woman slots.”

“The road to the trailhead? Christ, man. What the hell? The rental car company is going to have our ass if we lose a bumper or throw a tie rod. Do you people have road maintenance or what?”

“Take it slow and you’ll be good.”

I walked past the rotting, sun-bleached Drift Creek Wilderness kiosk, and my Jeep and the New Yorkers’ Mazda rental were the only two vehicles at the trailhead. Eventually, winter’s procession of atmospheric rivers will finish off the road to Drift Creek Wilderness for good, and for the forest and the animals who remain, that’s not a bad thing.


Visitors to the Oregon Coast Aquarium aviary might see Michael explaining to skeptical tourists that the common murres aren’t actually penguins. He also walks the Central Coast’s last fragments of temperate rainforest, kayaks among the tangle of invasive milfoil of Devil’s Lake, and during minus tides, searches for nudibranchs, sea stars, and agates along the rocky shore of Roads End with his wife Kim.

Beyond that beauty strip of old trees lining Highway 18, you might spot Michael riding (or pushing) his 1990s Giant Iguana mountain bike or sitting on a stump eating a banana, taking a hit of Albuterol, and reading the latest non fiction book about a crisis that up until that moment, sitting on the stump, he was blissfully unaware of.

Michael Edwards

Editor’s note:
“Wilderness Experienced” is a platform to share stories of recent experiences in Wilderness. Stories focus on the virtues of Wilderness and/or challenges facing the National Wilderness Preservation System.

Commenting guidelines:
We encourage readers to engage the authors and other commenters through the comment feature. Please be respectful and thoughtful in your response, and focus your comments on the issues/experiences presented. Please refrain from personal attacks and harassment, using rude or disruptive language, providing misinformation, or promoting violence or illegal activities. We reserve the right to reject comments. Thank you for your cooperation and support.

See what you can do to defend America’s National Wilderness Preservation System here

33 Comments

  • Perspective…..every convenience of access for me is a potential detriment to everything else.
    Most people are not thinking like that.

  • LOVE THIS! Best journey I’ve been on in awhile. I can see it, feel it, hear it, know it. Thanks for sharing. As a lover of the central coast, I love this story. And oh do I adore those trees and birds and that water. YES!

  • Loved this story – beautifully written! I’m with you – let wilderness be wilderness! The people who love and respect it will figure out how to see it without help, nor harming it. The people who don’t understand it’s incredibly thick and wild, perfectly imperfect beauty can stay out. Like so many good things in life, if it takes a lot of individual perseverance, it’s worth it. “Easy” and shortcuts are no way to attain or appreciate bliss. And if we leave nature well enough alone, she will thrive. We’re the trespassers, and should look on in awe and wonder.

  • Thank you for sharing. It looks beautiful. It must be preserved for future generations to enjoy.

  • Thank you for sharing this beautiful forest that is thriving due to a neglected road. Let’s hope it stays neglected so this special place remains free from human hoards.

  • Beautifully written. The images, sensory descriptions and joy of being there made me pleased to know this place exists. Thank you.

  • Absolutely lovely. Let’s preserve it.

  • Thank Earth, all the little gods or the One God, with respect to all beliefs, that Earth is regenerative; Nature nurtures in spite of all we humans do to damage it.

    Without that grace that comes from Nature we are doomed. We may be doomed anyway, but such stories give Hope at a time we really need it. Hope that we might learn soon enough to avoid our earned fate. A fate deserved only by the humans who destroy and abuse but that has been and will continue to be shared with every place, person and presence on Earth.

    Wouldn’t it be nice if more energy could go into supporting Earth rather than ravaging it?

    Thank you for the look into Drift Creek Wilderness.

  • Thank you 😊

  • Thank you, Michael, for carefully noticing and noting for us the paradoxical nature of ‘nature’, including human nature, these days. What an ode to your love for this particular pocket of wilderness.
    Thank you all for your comments…What a time to note, to call out, to call forth our loving call with, to and for ‘wilderness’s special nature’. Let us be emboldened to be wildly open to naturally arising creativity, to the benefit of all life on this precious, invaluably precious planet. We are all practicing together, on this edge, for all. Thank you for practicing together with me, for calling out for what we Love.

  • We need to preserve our planet before it’s too late

  • Paul the Slalom Racer February 4, 2025 at 11:36 am

    Drift Creek Wilderness!!! Yep, that’s one of the places my Wife and I try to go backpacking in every year. Enjoy it while your knees can handle it.

  • We need to preserve all these great natural wonders!

  • Wildernesses big and small need to be preserved because a multitude of life finds a home in them!

  • Actually did not like this article. Too much swearing and ‘pink genitals’? ‘Trees are too big’? Huh?

    I’ve walked this trail and it is GLORIOUS. I pray to Father God it shall not be ravaged…but with the evil BLM, #TraitorTrump, and the lowbrow loggers it will be. That’s not all we are about to lose – we are losing our freedom.

    Sorry, I just don’t like the style this person used, but at least someone cares about our heritage forests.

  • Very nicely written article. I’ve lived 85 years in Oregon and Washington. I’m happy that there are not more people living here than what we have. It is sad that there is “bureaucratic indifference” and 50% +/- of the population that cares little for our beautiful forests and wild animals. Change, as always, is coming. Hopefully we’ll survive a bit longer. Humans do only damage to this planet.

  • I remember those crayfish! Big’ns too, red as a chili pepper. I might even recall the pitbull, although it was 2014 and might’ve been a prior generation of terror. Yes, the ceaseless unraveling of USFS roads in the Northwest is a gift from the gods. Every spring, I eagerly anticipate winter’s wreckage. And more often than not, those busted roads don’t get fixed. Rain-on-snow events, you’re a friend of mine….

  • Adrienne B. Naumann February 4, 2025 at 9:40 am

    Please preserve and nurture all remaining wild lands in the U.S,, and its territories. Once g one an extinct we can never get them back; this in particular tragically true for the animals which I love too much as do millions of other citizens. Please no fracking or mineral/oil leases.

  • Well told to include the reasons we must have wilderness, the importance of funding to provide protection and limited access, and the variety of wildlife to be observed.

  • It’s very vital to take care of the pristine forest in Oregon. I loved the rain and sun through Oregon travelling.

  • I enjoyed the article, except for the conceited virtue signaling. Those “New Yorkers!” Humgh. I imagine that if they came three thousand miles and endured the crappy access road, they just might love Nature as much as you. And is it really good that soon humans will be unable to access the forest? At least then you will not have to endure other humans.
    Good, though.

  • Please protect this area!

  • Jess and Moira are both “spot on,” as the Brits would say. Poetic, painterly prose. Introduced me to two words new to me: “salal” and “kolk”.

  • Sad what we immigrants do to this wonderful land. The native tribes knew how to care for it. We should be ashamed.

  • Great article!!! When I was young I went with my parents as they traveled the states – it took a number of years but we did make it to every state – including Alaska – I was so lucky to have those experiences!

  • Preserve it so all can enjoy for times to come!

  • A wonderful walk through a forest untouched by humans via my mind’s eye. I do not need to see everything with my own eyes, it is enough to see through a gifted writer. It gives me great pleasure to know the plants and animals are carrying on with their full lives in this beautiful forest with no human intrusion. Thank you.

  • I miss the green forests but not the rain that caused them. Left Alaska and settled in AZ and barely remember the greenery in Oregon! Used to live in eastern Oregon high desert area, miss the breeze that blew dailey! Miss Oregon, thanks RPS

  • By the time Trump, Burgum and Rollins get through, we will be lucky to have any Federal lands, let alone wilderness

  • Marvelous essay. Colorfully written. Thanks for taking us into the Siuslaw with you, Michael, all the way from coastal Connecticut.

  • Hooked by the story, learned a lot, highly recommending this walk through the woods to friends.
    Wonderfully written

  • Great read!! The author is so good at balancing witty banter with educational facts about it the area. And he beautifully paints a picture of what he’s seeing around him. Would love to see more of his work!!!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *