Until a 2020 wildfire burned most of the trees and closed trails, 50,000 people a year hiked to see the Opal Creek Wilderness, once ranked by Audubon magazine with the Grand Canyon as one of the nation’s top 10 “paradises preserved” in the 20th century.
The fabled old-growth forest east of Salem is set to reopen to the public next summer, but what will you find there?…