community
january19
2017
Plans for Salmonberry Trail
trail project, called the Salmonberry
Trail, would be the largest in Oregon.
It would connect to other trails in the
region, including the Banks-Vernonia
Trail, and could become a national and
international draw for the region and the
state.
“The alignment of the rail line
and this potential trail is spectacular in
terms of its views and what people can
see, and there are really some magnifi -
cent vistas,” says State Senator Betsy
Johnson, a proponent of the trail and an
active member in the current planning
and development process. “This is an
opportunity to create something where
people can come and, not just to look at
something, but come and have an expe-
rience.”
Those efforts to convert the rail
line are ongoing, although, as anyone
who witnessed the development of both
the Banks-Vernonia Trail and the Crown
Zellerbach Trail (known as the CZ Trail
from Scappoose to Vernonia) can attest,
trail development projects of this size
and scope can take years, and usually de-
cades, to complete. The massive amount
of planning, coordination, and engineer-
ing needed can be daunting and glacial
in progress.
The proposed 86 mile long
Salmonberry Trail would follow the
Banks-Vernonia State Trail to the area
near Stub Stewart State Park, then head
west through Timber, entering the Tilla-
mook State Forest and traveling over the
Coast Range. It would pass through the
rugged and remote Salmonberry River
Canyon to the confl uence with the Ne-
halem River, following it to the town
of Wheeler at the Nehalem Bay, before
turning south and following Highway
101 to Tillamook. In Banks the trail
would connect to the Tualatin Valley
Scenic Bikeway, the Banks-Vernonia
State Trail, and in Vernonia to the CZ
Trail, creating a network of trails that
connect the Portland Metro area with the
coast.
“I see the Salmonberry Trail as
the crown jewel in this network of multi-
use trails throughout northwest Oregon
that could have national and international
appeal and draw,” says Senator Johnson.
“This is a uniquely Oregon opportunity
that draws on the natural strength of
our connectivity between the coast
and urban Portland. It could appeal to
multiple users, be managed and funded
cooperatively, and be an opportunity to
attract people to our little corner of the
world for an experiential recreational
3
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opportunity.”
Currently the Salmonberry Trail
is considered dangerous and remote, and
is closed to public use because of damage
to tunnels, trestles, and rails that have
not been repaired or maintained. The
Port of Tillamook Bay, which owns the
rail corridor, has posted no trespassing
signs, and violators could be cited.
While the trail is not useable at
this time, the Salmonberry Coalition was
formed to begin the process of planning
this massive undertaking, and produced
the Salmonberry Corridor Concept Plan
in the fall of 2014. The Concept Plan’s
vision states that the development of a
multi-use trail in the region, “has the po-
tential to connect urban and rural Or-
egon while tapping into a wide network
of existing recreation trails and parks,
educational opportunities and heritage
sites. This will create strong economic
opportunities for Northwest Oregon and
help revitalize communities along the
rail corridor, including Banks, Timber
and the small towns along the coast from
Wheeler to Tillamook.”
“People have been in and out
of the Tillamook Forest in that area for
decades, using it to hunt, using it to rec-
reate, using it for commerce when there
was logging in the Tillamook Forest,”
says Senator Johnson. “It is a produc-
tive opportunity, and I use productive in
all senses of the word. Over the years,
as more emphasis has begun to fall on
these multi-use trails and we’ve see the
success of the Banks-Vernonia Trail and
now the Crown Zellerbach Trail, we’re
really starting to think about connectiv-
ity.”
Indeed, the trail route offers ac-
cess to several state parks, additional ad-
venturous recreational opportunities like
canoeing, and kayaking, access to excel-
lent steelhead fi shing along the Salmon-
berry River, and hunting and hiking in
the Tillamook State Forest.
Finding ways to create opportu-
nities to share use is just one of the many
hurdles the trail planning and develop-
ment team will have to overcome as the
process slowly moves forward. “There
is some friction between these multiple
user groups,” says Senator Johnson. “I
still harbor the belief that we can all get
along and design different opportunities
along the trail that meet all their needs.”
The development of the Salmon-
berry Corridor Concept Plan was funded
through a grant from Cycle Oregon. Par-
ticipants in the coalition that produced
the concept plan include Senator John-
son, Washington and Tillamook Coun-
ties, Oregon Equestrian Trails, The Port
of Tillamook Bay, Oregon State Parks,
Oregon Department of Forestry, the
cities of Garabaldi, Nehalem, Manza-
nita, Rockaway Beach, Tillamook and
Wheeler, and Columbia Pacifi c Eco-
nomic Development District, to name
just a few.
The Concept Plan identifi es
four distinct sections of the trail: the
Valley Segment, a 25 mile section from
Banks to Cochran in the Coast Range;
the Salmonberry Segment, an 18 mile
section which is the wildest and also
most damaged part of the trail that trav-
els through the Salmonberry River Can-
yon to the confl uence of the Nehalem
River; the Nehalem Segment, a 17 mile
section from the confl uence to Nehalem
Bay; and the Coastal Segment, a 26
mile section that runs along the coast
from Wheeler to Tillamook.
While planning for the trail is
slowly moving forward, and the actual
development is starting to take shape,
Senator Johnson emphasizes that noth-
ing is set in stone yet and no fi nal deci-
sions have been made. “Some of the
renderings we have are highly concep-
tual and are there to give people a sort
of visionary sense of what might be.
There are still issues about the align-
ment and how it traverses different ar-
eas of the rail corridor. For example,
around Tillamook there are some dairy
farmers that are not enamored with
the idea of having tourists travel right
through working dairy operations. This
remains very much a work in progress.”
The project has been identi-
fi ed as “regionally signifi cant” by the
North Coast Regional Solutions Team,
making it a political priority at the state
level. It has also been deemed an Or-
egon Solutions Project by the Oregon
Governor’s offi ce.
Jim Johnson, who formerly
served as the Interim City Administrator
for the City of Vernonia, and currently
works for Oregon Solutions, is one of
the Project Managers for the Salmon-
berry Trail project.
According to Johnson the entire
right-of-way for the trail is owned by the
Port of Tillamook Bay, which simplifi es
some of the issues in developing a trail
of this magnitude, but because of all the
different jurisdictions that the rail line
travels through, there remains quite a bit
of work to do. “You can imagine hav-
ing to coordinate all these governmen-
tal agencies and get them going in the
Publisher and Managing Editor
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same direction,” said Johnson. “But that
is what we do well at Oregon Solutions -
creating cross sector collaborative work-
ing arrangements.”
Vernonians may remember that
the Vernonia Schools was an Oregon So-
lutions project that received assistance in
identifying a location for the new cam-
pus, as well as help with funding specifi c
parts of the project, including changes
by ODOT to the roadway approaching
the Missouri Avenue intersection that
leads to the new school.
Johnson says Oregon Solutions
has been part of several distinct, what
are termed “catalyst projects,” (a smaller
stand-alone project that is part of the
larger overall project and helps it move
forward) related to the Salmonberry
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