Berry bounty.

Byline: MIKE STAHLBERG The Register-Guard

SWEET HOME - Forest Service botanist Alice Smith was only a quarter-mile into the "wild berry hike" she was leading in the old Cascades mountain range, and one thing had already become apparent: An amazing variety of edible berries grow on the west slope of the Cascades.

In the first 20 minutes of their walk, Smith and the group of 15 people who signed up for the free hike offered Tuesday by the Sweet Home Ranger District had already sampled the fruits of a half-dozen different berries.

Some of those, like the stinkcurrant, fell into the category of what Smith described as "edible, but not particularly good tasting."

Others, like the salmonberry and certain elderberries, were diet staples for the original Oregonians.

And humans aren't alone in craving berries sweet and tart. Smith pointed out where deer and elk had browsed off the tops of thimbleberry plants.

"Deer just love thimbleberries," she said.

Wild strawberry plants covered the shoulders of the gravel road, but they finished bearing their fruit about a month ago, Smith said.

"Strawberries are really common along gravel roads," she said. "Anytime you're out in a vehicle in July, look along the gravel roads for wild strawberries."

Finally, the group ran across the one berry that was uppermost in the minds of those who had brought along plastic containers in which to take home berries - the huckleberry. But the "oval-leaved huckleberry" bush the botanist pointed out had only a few berries on its branches.

Smith, however, was saving the best berry-picking stops for last - perhaps sensing that it would be more difficult to keep people's attention once they started popping blue and purple bursts of juice in their mouths as fast as they could pick them.

Besides, there was something people needed to understand before they started munching berries in the woods.

"This is a really important plant to know," Smith said, pointing to a two-foot-high bush with serrated leaves in groups of three and several clusters of bright red berries.

"This is our one poisonous berry, the baneberry," Smith said, "It's poisonous enough that it could actually kill an adult and would certainly make you extremely sick.

"These baneberries are red, but they can be white."

Huckleberries, on the other hand, range in color from blue to red, and every conceivable combination of the two hues. They are found on plants tall and short, and with leaves of many shapes.

Huckleberries, it turns out, are themselves a case study in diversity.

"You say huckleberry, and most people think there's only one, but actually about a dozen different species of huckleberries grow in the Pacific Northwest," Smith explained before the group piled into Forest Service vans for the hourlong trip to their first stop at Tombstone Pass.

"We'll see about five of those today."

However, all the various varieties of huckleberries weren't as thick as Smith had hoped they would be when she first scheduled the hike last spring.

Scorching hot temperatures "just cooked" the evergreen variety of huckleberries at the lower elevations of the ranger district. "They dried up and burned," she said.

Meanwhile, the so-called "big" huckleberry (species membranaceum) is bearing a rather thin crop of fruit this year, at least in the Park Creek area west of the junction of state Highways 20 and 22, where Smith led her group for its second stop.

"The big huckleberry is the one that most people are looking for when they say they're going huckleberry picking," Smith said.

She said the "rather poor crop" of big huckleberries this year may be caused by some late-spring frosts that hit after the plants had already begun to blossom.

The shortage of big huckleberries, however, gave the botanist a chance to demonstrate that, in the Oregon Cascades in late August and early September, "you can always find huckleberries if you know what to look for and where to look."

It also allowed her the opportunity to extol the virtues of a couple of other members of the huckleberry family, ones that she says she enjoys even more - "dwarf" huckleberries and "bog" blueberries.

The dwarf (caespitosum) huckleberry produces a smaller fruit, but one that is exceedingly sweet, Smith said.

"This is, I think, one of the very best-tasting berries," Smith said. "The berries are small, but they are so sweet. They're wonderful, wonderful berries."

The bog blueberry (uliginosum) is equally tasty and is the "most dependable" member of the huckleberry family, she said, because it seems to bear a good crop of berries no matter what the weather conditions.

Smith planned the day's longest stop for one of her favorite picking areas - a boggy area on Park Creek, a couple of miles north of Laval Lake.

The wet meadow was full of the wild blueberry bushes, and the surrounding forest held oval-leaved huckleberries as well as a few big huckleberries, which tend to be more red than purple in this section of the Cascades.

As her hikers scattered to gather berries, Smith talked about the impact of changing forest ecology on berry production.

"Berries do like open ground," she said. "So, obviously, those old high-elevation clear cuts were the best berry places" when the forests were being logged intensely.

With less logging, fewer clearings are created. And even those that remain are not as conducive to berry growing as they once were.

"One of the problems we've had in our huckleberry areas has been beargrass," Smith said. "Beargrass is a big competitor of huckleberries. ... It's taking over many huckleberry areas."

The Forest Service is probably "going to start managing for berries in some areas," using prescribed burns to create the kind of forest openings that berries need, Smith said.

That would be taking a page from the Native Americans, who routinely burned the forest understory.

Late-summer hikers may find huckleberries of one variety or another through September in any forest opening above 3,000 feet.

The presence of water adds to the likelihood of berries being present, Smith said, "although I have found some of the best berries growing on exposed ridges."

Meanwhile, there are mixed reports about this year's berry crops on the McKenzie and Middle Fork ranger districts east of Eugene, according to forest botanists.

Those who've found productive patches tend to be as tight-lipped about it as if they'd found a prime fishing hole or mushrooming area.

"Berry-picking patches are kind of one of those things that you don't tell people about, right?" said Susan Stearns, botanist on the McKenzie District. "In my mind, that's part of the fun - going out and exploring your forests at a great time of year."

For would-be berry pickers needing a little general direction on places to explore, the Gold Lake and Waldo Lake areas on the Middle Fork Ranger District have been known to be be productive in the past, as have the Huckleberry Mountain and Blair Lake areas northeast of Oakridge.

On the McKenzie District, Roaring River Ridge east of Box Canyon and Bear Pass and Squaw Mountain northeast of Blue River are likely spots.

On the Sweet Home Ranger District, the Forest Service directs berry pickers to try Harter Mountain, Park Creek and Mouse Mountain roads 2025 and 2027.

CAPTION(S):

Alice Smith gathers bog blueberries during the wild berry hike she led east of Sweet Home. This hiker's Sierra cup contains a mixture of bright red big mountain huckleberries, bog blueberries and oval-leaved huckleberries, all gathered in the Park Creek area of the Sweet Home Ranger District. A salmonberry has a color similar to a cluster of salmon eggs. MIKE STAHLBERG / The Register-Guard Participants in the wild berry hike gather bog blueberries in an open wetland along Park Creek.