The Woodsman: Love Barlow Wayside Park? Thank Local Volunteers

Lon Welsh (left) and Mitch Williams. We wouldn’t have Barlow Wayside Park without them. Photo by Steve Wilent

If you haven’t yet visited our local Clackamas County park, Barlow Wayside, you’re missing out on a sweet place to walk in the woods and along a quiet mountain creek, witness salmon and steelhead spawning, and relish the sight and sound of two small but lively seasonal waterfalls. It’s not a large park, compared to other local parks, such as the US Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Wildwood Recreation Site, but with more than a mile and a half of trails, it’s big enough for a rejuvenating walk. The Wayside is on Barlow Trail Road, just west of the Sandy Ridge Trailhead, a popular mountain bike trail system.

Even the many locals who know and love Barlow Wayside don’t know that we wouldn’t have the park without the tireless efforts of Mitch Williams, who calls himself Barlow’s caretaker, and Lon Welsh, both of whom live nearby. More than 30 years ago, the two began a campaign to improve the 100 acres of county land to make it more accessible to the public. 

“Lon landed in this area back in the early 1980s and I moved up here a couple of years later, and we got to know each other as we wandered the area. We quickly became very attached to that piece of property,” said Williams.

Welsh recalls walking along deer trails and through areas of open forest. 

“It’s beautiful, with all that old timber in there,” Welsh said, “and I’ve never taken it for granted. When I first moved here, about 120 acres of private property to the east had just been clearcut. We were very concerned that the county might clearcut its property, too.”

That concern led Williams to look into the history of the property. He discovered that it had been acquired by the county in 1946, likely through property tax foreclosure. Ten years later, in 1956, the county established a park commission that soon permanently protected the property. 

But there was much work to be done to turn that property into a park. Many locals knew the land, and some had long used it as a dumping ground.

“All along Barlow Trail Road and up the service road to the waterfall, that area was full of garbage. A lot of it had been there for years and was grown over,” Williams recalls. 

Williams, Welsh, and numerous volunteers, including the Mt. Hood Corridor Community Planning Organization (CPO), the county forester, and a contingent organized by SOLVE, an environmental nonprofit group, removed tons of trash from the park and surrounding area over a couple of days in the 1990s. Other volunteers and youth groups, with funding from federal grants, worked to remove invasive plants.

In 1993, the CPO developed a formal proposal to the county to develop the property as a park. In 2006, the Board of Clackamas County Commissioners voted in favor of the park proposal. The following year, the non-profit Mt. Hood Stewardship Council obtained a conditional use permit to build the park infrastructure, and development started in 2009, with assistance from the BLM.

“We broke ground in the summer of 2009, with all parties involved — County Parks, BLM, MHSC, various youth groups, and a host of volunteers,” Williams said. “We started building formal trails — Lon and I had already laid out the routes for a lot of them.” 

“Old deer trails and informal footpaths were improved, and we made changes as necessary,” added Welsh. “We had to cross the wetlands, and some of the old trails weren’t in the right places, so we rerouted them and built bridges wherever it made the most sense.”

The BLM installed a kiosk and the pit toilet, which it continues to maintain. The county contracted with Jim Turin and Sons to build a gravel parking lot; the Turins paved it in 2018. Local artisans – David Rogers (who died in 2022), T&P Machine/Welding, and the Gallery at Alder Creek –  created a beautiful wooden roadside sign for the park, also in 2018. 

County Parks personnel played an important role in developing the infrastructure, including some bridges and the view deck, over the first year or so. Since then, Williams, Welsh, and other volunteers have done most of the maintenance and repairs. Most recently, they and a handful of volunteers rebuilt a footbridge that was deteriorating. They plan to replace the wetland boardwalk this fall. The county provided the materials and volunteers provided the labor. 

“Today, the park is what it is because of Mitch and his passion for the park,” Welsh said. “I help whenever I can, because I’m passionate about the park, too, but it’s Mitch who has really been the driving force. He’s tenacious — he never gives up.”

After reading this edition of The Woodsman, I hope you’ll have a new appreciation for the work of Mitch, Lon, and so many others.

“You turn on the tap on your sink and you get water. You flip a switch and the lights come on. That’s what’s supposed to happen — you don’t even think about it,” Welsh said. “It’s the same with the park: you show up and it’s there. It’s well maintained, there are informative signs, there’s no trash laying around. And people have no idea how that happened. Or that, while it’s a county park, it’s Mitch and a bunch of us locals that make it happen.”

“We can put a call out and five or six folks will show up. They’re always enthusiastic and willing to work hard,” said Williams. “The volunteers are the biggest gift.”

Some volunteers — there are too many to list here — work occasionally, some pitch in several times a year. New volunteers are always welcome for a variety of tasks, from keeping trails clear to rebuilding bridges. Want to lend a hand? Email me at SWilent@gmail.com with your contact information and I’ll pass it on to Williams, who is chair of the MHSC (see mthoodstewardshipcouncil.org).

For more maps, a trail guide, and information about the wayside, see clackamas.us/parks/barlowwayside.html.

Have a question about Barlow Wayside? Want to know about other opportunities to volunteer in our area? Let me know. Email: SWilent@gmail.com.