BOB: There's a sign over there.
EVA: Wow.
BOB: That's probably from the mid-twenties.
EVA: That's crazy.
BOB: Yeah, white ceramic, the tree grew into it.
This sign is just right off of Highway 26.
It's only a half a mile up the trail here,
but there's a mystery here for anyone to solve
if they kind of investigate a little bit.
What's with the line?
What are they doing?
What are they trying to tell us?
It's quite a story.
NARRATOR: This is a story about Bob.
And his time machine.
And his quest to go back in time.
You ready to go? Yeah.
NARRATOR: His traveling partner is his daughter, Eva.
Okay.
NARRATOR: Together, they've been exploring
the Mount Hood National Forest
in search of path that will lead them back to the early days
of outdoor recreation in the 1920s and '30s.
This path they seek
was once Oregon's greatest recreational trails: the Skyline.
No one's heard of the Skyline Trail.
There's this forgotten link
that was so important 100 years ago.
Nobody knows it's even there.
NARRATOR: The internationally famous
Pacific Crest Trail, or PCT,
is arguably Oregon's most well-known trail.
Yet the Oregon Skyline Trail came first
and literally blazed the way.
[warm music]
The Skyline was Oregon's first
long-distance recreation trail.
It ran along the spine of the Cascades,
from Mount Hood in the north,
all the way south to Crater Lake,
and then into California.
Today, few traces remain, and those can be hard to find.
This is called the dance of the Skyline Trail.
Gah!
I don't know if easier under or over.
You're walking down the middle
of this like barely visible trail.
It's like you would never know
that there's so much there
and so much that you can discover.
And like you can decide to be like,
"No, actually I'm gonna find this again."
BOB: Her time in the woods evolved
from just camping and picking huckleberries
to joining me on these adventures to find these old trails
and to see where there used to be a ranger station.
"R.E. Bartel, 1933."
These guys were working hard out here.
EVA: Hmm.
I think part of being a parent
is to sort of instill wonder into your kids.
I mean, I'm my own dad, so to speak.
I like to instill my own wonder and look at a map and say,
"Well, let's go there.
Look at this mountain.
Maybe there is a meadow.
Maybe there is an abandoned trail.
Who knows what's there?
Let's research it.
Let's go find out.
BOB: Where do we go? Which way?
Where's the next blaze? That way?
NARRATOR: The word trailblazer is commonly used,
[Bob grunts]
especially in Oregon.
BOB: Hmm.
NARRATOR: It's a general term
for someone who leads the way.
BOB: Yeah, there's a blaze there.
NARRATOR: But it has a very literal meaning.
Notching a cut into a tree trunk with an ax
to create a permanent scar on the bark called a blaze.
Yeah.
Well, there's one.
You can still see kind of the ax mark in there
from 100 years ago.
Boop, boop, boop.
So what's interesting about the Skyline Trail
is they have these three dots
and they're on both sides of the tree,
and they're so plentiful.
The guy just took a little hatchet and carved that out,
carved the bark away.
So even though the trail is completely abandoned,
it hasn't been used in 50 years or more,
it's still blazed, you can still follow it.
If you don't mind climbing over a few logs,
it'll take you where you got to go.
Here's a blaze.
NARRATOR: Bob's fascination with the Skyline
is not just the lost trail,
but the abandoned places that it once connected.
And some of those places can still be explored.
This is Clackamas Lake,
and it's been a very important place for a very long time.
Skyline Trail went right through the middle of it.
If you would arrive here in 1925 or so,
it would have been a bustling lively place,
the forest guards running back and forth
and crosscut saws on people's shoulders
and pack horse strings.
And it's a little different today.
It's quiet.
It's a little forgotten about corner of our national forest.
Oh, it's very dark in there.
EVA: See anything?
BOB: There's a mirror or something in there.
That's about it.
Here it still feels alive.
You still have the experience
of being in the 1930s and the '20s.
It's really frozen in time.
[warm music]
My whole life, I've been like,
"Oh, I'm going camping this weekend," you know?
My friends, you know, they're like,
"Oh, that's nice. Me too."
I'm like, "No, no, no.
You're not going camping the way I am."
These are two separate experiences right here.
You know, it's like, this is how most people do it,
this is how my dad and I do it, you know?
You gonna do your tent now?
Probably. Okay.
NARRATOR: Following the Skyline Trail
came the Skyline Road,
which allowed the very first automobiles
into the national forest.
A new form of outdoor recreation was created: car camping.
Bob's version of car camping is,
well, part of the time travel journey.
Yeah, my dad definitely has a more specific way
he likes to exist in the woods
and way he likes to go about camping, you know?
I was 16 when I got my first lantern.
Been with me for a long time, so it's kind of sentimental.
This one's called a super baby.
He lights his lanterns at the end of the night, you know?
And I dunno, I think it's definitely
like a more classic experience than a lot of people have.
I think part of me has a hard time with the modern world.
Just kind of want things to be a little more manageable.
This is just oil and a flame, glass.
Okay, I understand that.
Setting up camp, you know, my dad spent like half an hour
lighting all his crazy lanterns.
It's like, "Okay, now we are like surrounded by lanterns."
[gentle music] [wildlife chirping]
[birds singing]
[car engine revs]
[warm music]
So we're heading down to Leminti.
In the '20s, there was just the Skyline Road.
All right.
Let's see if anybody's home.
I doubt it.
The door's open.
[Bob knocking]
This would have been totally different, though,
with the rangers in here.
They would've had it all set up
and a place to keep their boots
and a little desk do paperwork.
And it would have been a tidy little place for many years.
There's a lot of neglect.
And that's the frustrating thing
about all these wonderful places.
Yeah, it's seen better days.
Talk about time travel.
You wanna do it, you just sit right here.
EVA: Can you imagine how many rangers have sat here?
BOB: Yeah.
[warm music]
BOB: This cabin, you see, was a historic guard station.
It was built in 1910,
right after the forest service was established.
And there were many such guard stations just like this one
scattered all across the Mount Hood Forest.
And this one is unique
because it's only one of two remaining
in Mount Hood Forest.
The rest of them, they've either burned or been torn down.
It's definitely interesting how he sees the world
and sees the wilderness as well, you know?
I think that he himself wishes
he was a ranger in the '20s, you know?
I think that's part of the reason why he loves it so much.
There's just a part of my being
that feels like I stepped out of the 1920s,
that I can't let go of that.
It's a long, rattly drive to get here even now.
Imagine being on the back of a horse
or walking here in that time.
It would have been a few days to get out here.
You can still feel like you're a long way from anything.
I think part of that is the appeal
that it is close to town,
but it still feels wild.
For now, there's still that sense of wildness, quiet.
NARRATOR: Bob finds a section of the former trail
clearcut by heavy equipment.
The modern world has torn a hole
in the fabric of his time travel.
Well, the last time I was here,
this was essentially wilderness.
The road was barely a road.
They brought us into the present day and that kind of sucks
when you're out trying to find something
that'll link you to all these different times
and experiences that are sort of timeless in themselves.
Maybe I'm romanticizing the past.
NARRATOR: The trail that first introduced Oregon
to long-distance recreational hiking
became sections of the PCT,
and the dirt road that first let automobiles into the forest
is paved over in spots by modern roads.
The in-between places have been left to grow back
and fade into memory.
Bob and Eva have reached Olallie Lake
just north of Mount Jefferson,
one of the original camping destinations on the Skyline.
Soon, they'll have to turn around,
head back to the city where jobs and school await.
This'll be the last camping trip of the summer,
and perhaps one of the last in their search for the Skyline.
[warm music]
EVA: Just spending time in the woods with my dad
is always something that I'm gonna look back on and be like,
"Aw, that's so sweet."
You know, like,
"Aw, father, daughter." Mm, they're so good.
Like, "Look at that, Eva.
Look at those memories," you know?
NARRATOR: Their search for the Skyline
started when Eva was in middle school.
She's now starting her last year of high school.
It's not going to be as easy to go into the woods
for weeks on end with my dad when I'm in college, you know?
[gentle music]
She's gonna go to college
and she's gonna have her own life.
And sure, we'll camp and we'll hike and things,
but our roles will change.
And yeah, yeah, I'm going to miss her a lot.
EVA: I mean, in the most literal sense, you know,
Skyline is, it's a thing that's made to connect.
It's not just something that's been abandoned.
It's something that like takes you where you need to go.
And still can, even after years of being like discarded.
It's like, you can always choose to come back
to something even if it's labeled as like lost.
You can always choose to find things again.
And I think that's a beautiful thing.