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This trail enters the Boulder Creek Wilderness and the usual federal wilderness area regulations and restrictions apply here: practice Leave No Trace (LNT) backcountry skills and ethics, camp 100 feet from fragile areas, bury human waste at least 200 feet from water, trails, and campsites. This trail is usually open all year but may be closed by snow between November and May in unusually snowy years.

Description

The Bradley Trail #1491 runs between Forest Road 4772 and the Boulder Creek Trail #1552 on Pine Bench in the Boulder Creek Wilderness. It provides a way to reach the bench without having to climb either the Soda Springs Trail #1493 or the Boulder Creek Trail #1552 from the North Umpqua Trail #1414.

Pine Bench, a large grassy opening with widely spaced old-growth Ponderosa pine, is probably the most popular destination in this wilderness; there are nice views of Boulder Creek Canyon from the bench. This dry forest here was burned in a natural mosaic fire in 1996, and again in 2008, but is now recovering beautifully. The forest here includes giant sugar pines and Douglas-firs.

From Forest Road 4772, the trail descends about 300 feet in 0.6 miles to Soda Springs and a junction with the Soda Springs Trail #1493. From there, the #1491 climbs gently for another mile, through the burned snags of the 1996 and 2008 fires, to the edge of the bench. It then undulates easily along the bench to end at its junction with the #1552.

There are ample camping spots on the Bench and limited water may be found at a spring off the #1552 on the north side of the Bench.