| Winema National Forest | |
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IUCN Category VI (Managed Resource Protected Area)
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Aspen Caldera, Mountain Lakes Wilderness, Winema NF |
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| Location | Klamath County, Oregon, USA |
| Nearest city | Klamath Falls, Oregon |
| Area | 1,045,548 acres (4,231 km2) |
| Established | 1961 |
| Visitors | 498,000 [1] (in 2006) |
| Governing body | U.S. Forest Service |
The Winema National Forest is a United States National Forest in Klamath County on the eastern slopes of the Cascade Range in south-central Oregon, and covers 1,045,548 acres (4,231 km2). The forest borders Crater Lake National Park near the crest of the Cascades and stretches eastward into the Klamath Basin. Near the floor of the Basin the forest gives way to vast marshes and meadows associated with Upper Klamath Lake and the Williamson River drainage. To the north and east extensive stands of ponderosa and lodgepole pine grow on deep pumice and ash that blanketed the area during the eruption of Mount Mazama nearly 7,000 years ago.[2] A 1993 Forest Service study estimated that the extent of old growth in the Forest was 711,674 acres (288,004 ha).[3]
There are local ranger district offices located in Chemult, Chiloquin, and Klamath Falls.
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The forest is named after Toby Riddle, a Modoc woman also known as "Winema".
Founded in 1961, the Winema National Forest was initially protected as the Cascade Range Forest Reserve from 1893 to 1907, when it became the Cascade (South) National Forest. In 1908, it changed to the Mazama National Forest and then Crater Lake National Forest until 1932. The land was part of the Rogue River National Forest from 1932 to 1961, when it was designated the Winema National Forest. In 2002, it was administratively combined with the Fremont National Forest to become the Fremont–Winema National Forests.[2] The Winema National Forest separately is the third-largest National Forest (after the (Nez Perce National Forest and the Okanogan National Forest) that is contained entirely within one county.
More than 50 percent of the forest is former Klamath Indian Reservation land. Two purchases by the United States government - the first in 1963 of about 500,000 acres (2,023 km2) and the second in 1973 of about 135,000 acres (546 km2) - were combined with portions of three other national forests to form the Winema National Forest.
Members of the Klamath tribe reserve specific rights of hunting, fishing, trapping, and gathering of forest materials on former reservation land within the Winema National Forest.[2]