Wallowa-Whitman National Forest

The Beaver Creek Roadless Area is on the La Grande Ranger District of the Wallowa Whitman National Forest. It is 11 miles south, as the crow flies, from La Grande and can be accessed by Highway 244, which junctions with I-84 about 8 miles west of La Grande.

The Beaver Creek Roadless Area is an oasis of dense ancient forest within a highly fragmented landscape. Intactness, balance, harmony, and uniqueness characterize the place that is the designated municipal watershed for the City of LaGrande.

According to the 1999 draft Environmental Impact Statement prepared by the U.S. Forest Service to enable logging of the roadless area, people entering it "...feel as if they are stepping back in time to an era when truly remote living in outstanding settings was possible for people from all walks of life." The roadless area is graced with many hiking trails.

The watershed provides the City of La Grande with its secondary water supply. The Beaver Creek Drainage is unique in mostly-arid eastern Oregon: Due to its proximity amid the surrounding mountains and its northwest-facing aspect, it receives abundant precipitation and produces an amazingly high amount of water for such a small drainage.

The importance of this pristine 12,000 acre roadless area to wildlife cannot be understated. Many species of forest-dependent wildlife thrive there, seeking shelter in its roadless and largely old growth character. The rare American pine marten thrives in the forest’s large standing snags and downed trees. Elk and black bear are abundant in the watershed because of the plentiful food supply, old growth habitat, and security.

The Beaver Creek roadless area has been reduced from 23,000 acres in 1978 to its current 12,000 acres due to an intensive Forest Service logging program. Logging and road building will continue to chip away at this special area if it is not permanently protected.

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