Solitude and challenges found in Salmon-Huckleberry Wilderness: Green Canyon -> Hunchback Mountain -> Salmon River loop
This is a great, but super challenging (for me at least) loop we just did. Starting at the Green Canyon trail 793A to Hunchback Mountain trail 793, passing Devil’s Peak, down to Salmon River trail 742 was a grueling 18 miles and 4300 ft elevation gain loop. Oregon Hikers has a good write up on this that claims 15.6 miles but we clocked 18 - perhaps due to the various wandering around the Devils Peak lookout and Kinzel Lake.
The vast majority of elevation gain is found in the first ~6 miles of stunning NW forest. It felt like every half mile we turned a corner and found ourselves in a new biome with fresh flowers, ferns, mushrooms, and undergrowth. The challenges included steep and sometimes narrow trails requiring careful steps (poles required for sure) along with navigating fallen trees along the way of which there were plenty. The big payoff of this stretch was that we saw exactly one person: a trail runner who came leaping through a stretch of fallen trees like a gazelle after we had spent great effort to carefully navigate over them - if that was you I am not sure if I should curse or cheer but it was sure impressive.
The descent to Salmon River was equally challenging and beautiful. While we did see other hikers in this stretch, it wasn’t until the last 3-4 miles that it started feeling a little too peopled.
This trail didn’t give a ton of the breathtaking views we all love, but the challenging terrain, solitude, dizzying topography, and lush forest put this up there as a favorite for me.