Scott Pass: a trail into history

Don't give up on hiking season yet, there are still many places to explore.

About five miles west of Sisters High School, there is a green road sign pointing toward Scott Pass Trailhead.

In 1862, Felix Scott, Jr. assembled a crew of 40 men to drive over a thousand head of stock from the Willamette Valley into eastern Oregon, and this is the route they chose.

Today we can drive our cars to within 3.5 miles of the place where Scott crossed the Cascade crest, lending his name to the 6,000-foot-high notch in the mountains. Rather than hiking up to the pass and back the same route, we decided to leave a car at Lava Camp Lake near McKenzie Pass and make a one-way hike over Scott Pass, then past the Matthieu Lakes to the Lava Camp Lake trailhead.

From the trailhead to Scott Pass there is an elevation gain of about 1,000 feet; but the grade on the first part of the trail is very gradual. It's a pleasant hike through a mixed conifer forest.

At the 1.2-mile point, we encountered a trail junction. To the right, the sign said, Lava Camp Lake; to the left was Green Lakes. We were planning a day hike, not an overnighter to Century Drive. Since our other car was at Lava Camp Lake, the choice seemed like a no-brainer; and we didn't even consult the map. Wrong choice.

Here's a helpful hint for the Scott Pass Trail: if you start crossing creeks at this point, you're not headed to Scott Pass. Fortunately, it soon became clear we weren't on the right trail.

We returned to the Green Lakes junction, and our map confirmed that the Green Lakes Trail peels off from the Scott Pass Trail another half-mile to the west. In other words, you don't have to hike all the way to Century Drive if you turn left.

After the "real" Green Lakes junction, the trail trends steadily upward, but the last half-mile to Scott Pass is very steep. There are some great views along this stretch. I tried to imagine hundreds of cattle headed down this slope, and it was not a pretty sight.

When Scott pioneered this route in 1862, he also brought nine big freight wagons on the expedition. Historical records indicate that he used as many as 52 oxen to haul a single wagon up the steep west side. Once atop the ridge, his crew tied trees to each wagon to prevent a catastrophic descent.

Existing roads at that time extended only as far east as Vida, about 20 miles east of Eugene. As a result, Scott's party had to hack their way through the dense forest on the western slopes of the Cascades, and it took them several weeks. Once over the crest, however, Scott took advantage of the more open spaces on the eastern slopes and released most of his crew.

Scott Pass itself is a steep narrow ridge set between red cinder cones. At 6,000 feet in elevation, it's no wonder that future travelers sought better - and lower - routes. Still, Scott brought another herd over this same pass a few years later. I was glad we didn't have a herd of cattle with us on our trip.

South Matthieu Lake is essentially atop the pass and is a great place for a lunch break - or a refreshing swim. More often accessed from the north, the Matthieu Lakes are a popular destination, and we ended up spending an hour or so just hanging out by the lake.

Although we decided before the hike not to take the same route back, we still had two choices for a return to Lava Camp Lake. Just north of South Matthieu Lake, the trail forks; and the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) goes to the right along a cinder ridge. It was a hot day, so we opted for the left fork, which dips back into the cool forest and scoots along the east side of North Matthieu Lake.

Most of the return trail is (barely) on the west side of the Cascades, and the vegetation is markedly different from that of the eastern trailhead. The pleasant return took hardly more than an hour and skirted the edge of the McKenzie lava flows. Our trail rejoined the PCT for about 0.7 mile, before a short connector trail leads to the parking lot. If you enter the lava flow, you've gone just a bit too far.

The Scott Pass Trailhead can be reached by taking the McKenzie Highway 5 miles west of Sisters to a left turn onto Forest Road 1018. About six miles later, turn right on Road 1026; it's a little over a mile to the trailhead. To make this a one-way hike, leave another car at the trailhead near Lava Camp Lake, which is a half-mile short of McKenzie Pass. Free wilderness permits are required.