Gravel Ride to Bacona

I start from the Buxton Trailhead of the Banks-Vernonia trail. I plan on covering the trail, its history, and many of the communities it passes through (including Buxton, itself) in a future installment. 

Today, I'm mostly using the parking lot, which is along...Buxton Road. The road is paved to the trailhead but it goes to gravel within a few hundred feet. The climb begins almost immediately.

Bacona

The homes are frequent for a while, this is still dispersed Buxton. It's mostly single-family farms in various states of repair. 

There's also some businesses, like this frisbee golf course that seemed pretty crowded. It was across the street from one of those spiritual retreats that seem all the rage throughout the coastal range.

Once the homes peter out, I'm firmly in logging country. As I climb, the scenery alternates between dense woods and clear-cut areas, offering occasional views in all directions.

After climbing 1600ft I pass a junction and the road flattens a bit. I'm now riding the ridge. Given all the no-trespassing gates and logging signage, it's easy to feel unwelcome. Remember, the road is indisputably public for over a century and even many private logging roads have easements for pedestrians.

It's the weekend so there's no active heavy equipment for me to navigate. After a few steep kickers, I arrive at Bacona!

That's it. Just this one house. It's a nice house, but hardly a community anymore. Bacona was once an active logging community with their own post office from 1887 to 1934. The first postmaster, a Cyrus Bacon, named the post office after himself.

The population never was that large (70 at most) and at 2000 ft above sea level, the town was snowed in and inaccessible for months at a time. Still, Bacona had a single-room schoolhouse.

It's hard for me to say for sure what happened. It's remoteness was never beneficial. As railroads were built through the area (but not close by) and automobiles became more affordable, there was probably less reason to build permanent homes. 

Unlike other lost pioneer communities, Bacona retains a place on WashCo maps. For adventurous travelers, I think that may because it represents an interesting nexus of Coastal Range backcountry. From Bacona along the net of unpaved roads, I could have continued east to Scappoose, north to Scapponia park, northwest to Vernonia or southeast to North Plains (via Snooseville and Mountaindale).

But I'm tired. I pick the least ambitious route and retrace my path to the ridgetop junction on my way to Tophill.

Tophill

I love biking uphill and hate going downhill. Especially when its very steep. Especially when on loose gravel. The road down Hoffman Hill was a harrowing descent that gave my brakes a workout. After losing 1000ft of height in less than two miles, I landed at Hwy 47 and Tophill.

Today, Tophill is the name of a few nearby geographic features. The first is the cluster of homes near the intersection of Hoffman Rd and 47 (shown above). A recreational farm called Tophill is along the highway (closed when I passed through but open on weekdays).

There's also a Tophill trailhead and parking area about a mile down Hwy 47 where the BV trail crosses. This stretch of the trail is notorious for it's steep descent to the road followed immediately by a brutal climb back up. If you're wondering how locomotives handled an 8% graded valley, well...they didn't.  There's a trestle over the highway. Also called Tophill.

The Tophill trestle is unsafe for passage and not accessible. Trail users have to descend then climb to continue to Vernonia.

Haydite

I continue a little north of Tophill before turning around so I can reach the final community of my ride today. It's Haydite!

What's a Haydite? This:

...there's nothing here.

A look over the 1979 map and a Google search for "Haydite" clears up the mystery.

Haydite is the name of a decorative shale. There used to be a quarry along the railroad in its waning days. From the ground-level, I could see no obvious sign of mining but LIDAR shows an obvious divot in the mountainside.

A quarry is still a highly unusual inclusion. There are likely hundreds of former quarry sites throughout the county along with over a dozen still active today, none of which appear on the WashCo community map.

I suspect that in the waning days of the railroad, a small stop may have been built here to haul off rock. The railroad likely named the stop "Haydite". It wouldn't be the only mirage town along the railroad.

From here, I can continue north to Vernonia, but that's in Columbia County (Boo! Hiss!). Instead, I call it a day and turn back to Buxton. I keep it easy and stick to the BV-trail. After the down-and-up nonsense of Tophill, it's an easy coast back to the car through L.L. Stub Stewart Park.