(birds chirping)
- [Marty] Entering this forest
is like stepping into the mystery.
You come here and you feel a sense of reverence.
It's very humbling.
- [Host] Marty McCall of Friends of Opal Creek,
showed us around the area.
- This I would say, along with Opal Pool,
is the most popular place for people to visit
when they come to Opal Creek.
A lot of activity here in the summer.
- [Host] Friends of Opal Creek
is a private, non profit group,
most responsible for gaining its protection.
- [Marty] There are other wildernesses.
There are other old growth spans,
but there aren't others like this.
- [Host] Opal Creek stands out among surviving
old growth areas because of its proximity
to population centers,
its relatively low elevation, and its size.
At 35,000 acres, this watershed still functions
like a virgin forest.
- This is an in tact ecosystem.
It has all its arms and legs and vital organs,
and that makes it very unique, very special.
- [Host] Opal Creek remains in tact
because of an unusual combination of geography,
luck, and dedicated supporters.
Steep canyon walls kept the watershed
relatively inaccessible for years.
Miners did hike in here in the mid 1800s
when gold fever was sweeping the West.
- [Marty] This is the Golden Bear Mine
and it goes back in here about 800 feet.
You can see there's quite a bit of water in here.
You think of those miners coming in here
day after day and hacking this out of the rock.
That looks like some copper there, quite a big chunk of it.
Once we get the light on it,
you can see there's quite a bit.
- [Host] But a mine like this one probably never paid...
- Oh no no, this was probably hard luck story.
- [Host] Miners never did find enough gold or copper
to make it pay, so their hard luck spared Opal Creek
from potentially damaging gold mining operations.
But the mining history didn't end there.
This old camp, called Jawbone Flats,
survives from a second wave of mining
that hit in the late 1920's.
Zinc and lead deposits fueled this small boom.
- [Marty] I think there were 27 buildings
at Jawbone Flats by 1934.
- [Host] But again, luck was on the Creek's side.
Miners separated the ore with a water flotation system
that didn't foul the creek.
- There were no chemicals essentially used,
which is very lucky, and they didn't do any strip mining.
- [Host] Today this area still has
some of the purest water in Oregon.
The zinc mines did however open access into the canyon.
In 1930, miners built the first road
with an ingenious design that survives today.
- And they built this structure out over the canyon
and simply created what we call the half bridges,
which consist of a road bed that is half on land
and half literally hanging out over the canyon.
- [Host] With the road, small scale logging
arrived at Opal Creek.
- [Marty] This building was constructed 1943.
It was part of the Merten Mill, saw mill,
in a response to the need for timber
for the liberty ships for the war effort.
But the most interesting thing about this,
and all this equipment you see,
is that it came from the battleship Oregon.
- [Host] Again, luck came into play,
this time bad luck for the loggers.
Break failures on trucks hauling timber
forced some drivers to bail out
before their trucks plunged into the canyon.
- After they'd logged about five acres
of the surrounding forest, they closed up shop.
So for us today, that's good news
because had that not happened they probably
would have logged a much larger portion of the forest.
- [Host] The battleship Oregon equipment
abandoned at the Merten Mill site is now
a popular stop for hikers.
- This is one of our most visited sites.
People love this, people love this.
- [Host] In a final bit of irony,
the zinc mines ended up protecting the watershed.
That's because in 1972 the Perseus Company of Hawaii
bought the mineral rights.
While continued to mine a little,
their main purpose was conservation.
- Their presence here really protected this area,
and a man by the name of George Atiyeh led that effort.
And if it hadn't been for George
and all the activities that he led through those years
to forestall timber sales in this watershed,
it wouldn't be here for us.
- [Host] The Perseus Company donated the land
to Friends of Opal Creek in 1992.
But Atiyeh's dedication protected not only the forest,
it also preserved many buildings at Jawbone Flats.
- [Marty] It's just a marvelous resource
and we are talking to the Forest Service
about a partnership in which we could provide
interpretive programs and facilities so that people
can come here and really see what it was like.
I mean this is a 1930s mining camp that's still
pretty charming and pretty in tact.
(engine roaring)
- [Host] With protecting legislation passed,
Friends of Opal Creek is now working
towards making the area a center
for historical and ecological research and education.
- [Marty] We're already serving about 1500 students a year.
- [Host] These kids from Portland's Environmental
Middle School are spending a couple of days here
learning about the ecology of a virgin forest.
The first stop on their walk in
is a huge old Douglas Fir, what most people think of
when they think old growth.
- [Teacher] How old do you think this tree probably is?
- [Student] Eight hundred.
- [Teacher] That's a good guess.
How do you tell how old a tree is?
- [Host] By counting rings on a core sample,
scientists estimate this tree
to be about a thousand years old.
The students learn though, that Douglas Fir
is gradually giving way to other species.
- You'll see more Cedar actually in here
because we're close to the stream.
There's also a far amount of Hemlock in here.
So we're in a pretty old part of the forest here.
And actually right here we see
the characteristics that really make up
an old growth forest.
You see a multi-story canopy.
Right here behind me, here's a downed log.
That's a very, very important component
of the old growth forest because that's where
the recycling of nutrients happens.
And then you see here a lot of standing snags, dead trees,
a lot of habitat there.
- You want to start right there.
You want to have two people measuring
so you have one person going on both sides.
- [Host] The students do a little hands on measurement
of a forest plot, recording tree species and size.
- [Student] Just about 15 centimeters.
- [Teacher] Just about 15, and Western Hemlock.
- [Host] They also discover creatures
that play crucial roles in the forest.
This cyanide millipede eats needles from Fir trees
thereby recycling the nutrients.
In short order, the students have learned
that the most important characteristic
of old growth isn't big trees.
- [Student] A lot of different kinds of trees and animals.
- [Teacher] Yeah, species diversity.
- [Host] The students stay the night at Jawbone Flats
and learn a bit about the logging and mining history too.
- [Student] How good can you see in there?
- [Teacher] About that far, is as far as you can see,
not a long ways.
- [Marty] Our view is that these kids
are going to grow up in a world
that could double in population in their lifetime.
And they're going to be faced with making
enormously difficult natural resources decisions.
We would like to give them some of the tools,
introduce them to some of the options,
the alternatives and the consequences.
- [Host] Good luck and some dedicated people
allowed Opal Creek to survive
as a remarkable treasure for Oregon.
Today it provides a rare storehouse
of ecological integrity, a source of clean water,
and a rich history.
- It's very renewing; it feeds the soul.
And I think more than anything it's just a sense of awe
that people have when they come here.
- [Host] The question now is, can Opal Creek survive
our ever growing need to experience places like this?
- [Marty] It's an extraordinarily accessible
area for recreationists.
We're within two hours of all the major
population centers in the Willamette Valley
and that's a real worry to those of us who've loved it,
that it won't be loved to death.
(water flowing)