Straddling three distinct watersheds is Mt. Bolivar, Coos County’s highest peak. At 4319 feet, it’s not exactly Everest, but among other notable highlights, there’s a plaque from the people of Venezuela. More about Mt. Bolívar and that plaque in a moment.
Place names almost always have a story behind them, and our local mountaintops are no exception. For that matter, the ocean, bays, rivers, valleys, towns and even the waterfalls have names that mean something. Pacific is Spanish for placid, or calm. Names such as Coos refer to Indian tribal names, while Curry, Douglas, Langlois and Reedsport refer to early white settlers.
Once in a while you get a really colorful story behind the name, such as Siskiyou, Humbug Mountain or Whiskey Run. You can look them up – and just about every other place name in Oregon – in Lewis A. McArthur’s excellent reference book “Oregon Geographic Names.”
These are the things you may ponder as you gasp skyward up the 1.4-nile trail to Mt. Bolivar. As I said, Everest it ain’t, not even in the league of its Cascade cousins. Still, it’s one of the Coast Range’s highest peaks, with views on a clear day north all the way to Mt. Hood and south to Mt. Shasta.
How this peak, astride the Coos-Curry county line as well as atop the watershed divide of three river systems, came to be known as Mt. Bolívar is a story with not just the aforementioned South American connection, but a local angle as well.
One of Coos County’s most notable pioneers was Simón Bolívar Cathcart, born in Indiana in 1842 and arriving in Oregon in the 1850s with his parents in the first wave of white settlers. He served in the first Oregon Calvary, dabbled in horse and cattle trading, and was a land surveyor. His tireless exploits led him up and down most of the local mountains, and he named several of them and later led formal surveying expeditions.
Then as now, it would have been considered bad form to name a mountain after oneself, so the designation of Mt. Bolívar, although made by Cathcart during a 1900 township survey, is said to be “applied to honor” the South American who fought for independence from Spain.
Cathcart eventually settled up the Millicoma River, and in later years two government surveyors named a mountain in that vicinity for him.
As for the plaque atop Mt. Bolívar, I’m told foreign exchange and local students in the 1980s thought up the idea, and worked with Forest Service officials, Venezuelan diplomatic representatives and enthusiastic volunteers to install it.
Three different fire lookout towers perched here over the years, but only concrete footings and bits of broken glass remain. The view, as might be expected from the region’s highest point, can be heartbreakingly spectacular or routinely hazy – the latter thanks to coastal fog, valley smog, or smoke from forest fires and slash burns. An interpretive sign at the trailhead suggests the mountain has been the destination for Indian spirit quests.
Mt. Bolívar straddles the watersheds of the Rogue and Coquille rivers, as well as the Cow Creek drainage, which eventually feeds into the Umpqua River.
Licked by fires in recent years, the mountain is recovering, and there are pockets of fine old growth, including stately Douglas fir, Brewer’s spruce, yew trees and tanoak. Meantime, the trail’s nearly two dozen switchbacks finally reach the rocky mountaintop, where splendor as previously described awaits. Onward to Bolivar!
Getting There
From Myrtle Point, go east on Highway 42 about four miles to the Powers Highway and follow it 18 miles to Powers. Proceed through Powers on what eventually becomes Forest Service Rd. 33. In 13 miles turn east on paved FS 3348, following the sign to Glendale. You will stay on FS 3348 (which becomes BLM 32-8-3.1, Kelsey Mule Rd.) for 35 miles to the trailhead Access is free.
(Shopper columnist Tom Baake is author of local guidebooks.)
