Backpacking Oregon: From Coastal Cliffs to Mountain Meadows

Find 26 of the best backpacking routes in the Pacific Northwest with this comprehensive guide, complete with maps and essential details.

Whether you're a hiker looking for new challenges or a seasoned backpacker in search of unique routes, find your favorite scenic escapes in Oregon. Prepare yourself for colorful desert canyonlands, stunning wildflower meadows, glacier-clad mountains, and more! Expert authors Becky Ohlsen and Douglas Lorain present 26 of the best backpacking opportunities in the country. Explore the various landscapes of the Wallowa Mountains. See the peaks of Mount Hood and the Three Sisters in the High Cascades, as well as the gaping chasm of Hells Canyon. Each carefully crafted itinerary offers geographic diversity, beautiful settings, and attainable daily mileage goals.

A trusted guide since 1999, this updated edition provides all the information backpackers need, including trail highlights, total mileage, elevation gain, days on the trail, shuttle distances, and required permits--not to mention professional photographs and detailed maps. Plus, ratings for scenery, solitude, and difficulty help you find the exact adventure you seek. As an added bonus, the authors include recommendations for 14 additional backpacking trips. Whether you have three days or two weeks, an adventure filled with spectacular sights and superb vistas awaits.

Inside you'll find:

• 26 premier backpacking trips, ranging from a few days to a couple of weeks


• Carefully crafted itineraries that offer geographic diversity and attainable mileage goals


• The authors' ratings for scenery, solitude, and difficulty


• Need-to-know details, such as trail highlights, mileage, elevation gain, and more


• Bonus: author recommendations for 14 additional backpacking trips

Becky Ohlsen is a freelance writer based in Portland, Oregon, and Rye, Colorado. She writes about travel and outdoor adventures, usually in places where it rains a lot: Sweden, Oregon, Washington. She can barely ride a bicycle but has crossed the US by motorcycle more than once. She likes new camping gear, old kung fu movies, and books about sentences.

Becky is the author of several books, including Backpacking Oregon, Best Tent Camping: Oregon, One Night Wilderness: Portland, and Walking Portland. Between assignments, she continues to peck away at a book about motorcycles and the allure of risk.

Becky spends a lot of time roaming around. For a few years she raced a vintage Honda 175 at Portland International Raceway (very slowly). She has a probably ill-advised master's degree in journalism from NYU's Cultural Reporting and Criticism program and has occasionally taught journalism. A recovering copy editor, Becky will debate points of grammar with anyone, anytime.

Douglas Lorain moved with his family to the Pacific Northwest in 1969, and he has been obsessively hitting the trails of his home region ever since. Spurred by an unquenchable thirst for new trails to explore and a great enthusiasm for backpacking, he has hiked more than 30,000 miles through every corner of the American Northwest and many thousands more in other western states and Canadian provinces. Despite a history that includes being bitten by a rattlesnake, being shot at by a hunter, being charged by grizzly bears (twice!), and donating gallons of blood to mosquitoes, Douglas claims that he wouldn't trade one moment of it because he has also been blessed to see some of the most beautiful scenery on Earth.

His other books for Wilderness Press include Backpacking Idaho, Backpacking Washington, Backpacking Wyoming, One Best Hike: Mount Rainier's Wonderland Trail, One Night Wilderness: Portland, and Top Trails: Olympic National Park & Vicinity.

Douglas is a photographer and recipient of the National Outdoor Book Award. His photographs have appeared in numerous magazines, calendars, and books.