The Kalmiopsis Wilderness is over 180,000 acres of federally protected USFS land in the far Southwest corner of Oregon. This is a land that has seen many major wildfires over the past two decades. Much of the terrain that the Leach Memorial Loop covers shows major evidence of this history. There are stands of ghost trees waiting to fall, and large swaths of terrain which burned so hot that all evidence of old growth coast forest is completely gone. The stands of old growth that do remain tell the story of the way things used to be.