Iron Mountain

Who knew Iron Mountain was such an amazing wildflower hike? The short answer is everyone but me, but that's not entirely accurate, either. I had heard rumors about the wildflower display on Cone Peak and Iron Mountain but had only ever gone on this hike either in winter or late autumn. During those two seasons, any vegetation capable of decorating the two peaks were either all dried up and shriveled like a mummified ancestor, or buried under a layer of snow like a mummified Eskimo ancestor. So, it was high time to make a July sortie out to the Tombstone Pass area and have a look-see.

The trail slices through some of
that Tombstone Prairie greenery

Accompanied by trusty side-kick Missy, I set out on the Santiam Wagon Road which immediately dropped down into Tombstone Prairie. Here, the verdant meadows of the prairie reposed in the valley laying between Cone Peak and Browder Ridge. Rampant greenery flourished under a deep blue sky and already we were off to a fine start.

Columbia tiger lily, always elegant and eye-catching

After an appreciative gawk-stop at the green prairie, we grabbed the Cone Peak Trail and began heading uphill in earnest. At least the hiking was done in a beautifully shaded forest which gave rise to more greenery and a different cast of wildflowers to admire, causing us to almost forget we were walking uphill. The forest floor was strewn with queen's cup, Sitka valerian, Columbia windflower, and other white-colored flowers. Representing the non-white end of the color spectrum were peavine, Columbia tiger lily, woodland penstemon, and a small reef of Merten's coralroot

Golden yarrow, one of the brightest flowers around

Maybe it was a pre-existing condition, but our opinion was that the flowers in the forest were pretty spectacular. Nothing could ever top this. Oh, we were naive then, so early on in our hike. After a mile or two of steady uphill walking, the trail began to break out into intermittent rock gardens with golden yarrow, rock penstemon, and stonecrop stuffed into the cracks between rocks. Nearby, bloomed single specimens of dark purple larkspur, hinting at the larkspur show in our near future.

The larkspur hordes

One larkspur is elegantly beautiful but multiply that by a factor of 4.7 googols and you have the Cone Peak experience in summation. The trail passed through open areas with massive armies of larkspur marching forward to champion the cause of all things purple. Interspersed among the larkspur hordes were occasional specimens of white larkspur, something I had never seen before. The purple meadows were simply amazing and beyond words, although it seems I've managed to come up with a few.

Cone Peak looms above its wildflower gardens

Eventually the path made its way into the pumice barrens below Cone Peak, although they were not as barren as I have seen them in winter. A veritable rainbow of colored petals resided at the end of various flower stalks, splotching the slopes of Cone Peak with color, like a geologic paint palette. All hiking came to a screeching halt as we perused and/or photographed the fields of flowers.

South Peak rises next to Cone Peak

Even without the wildflowers, the loop hike around Cone Peak and Iron Mountain is pretty cool. Views of nearby peaks abound and to the east of Cone Peak, rise South Peak, Echo Mountain, and North Peak, seemingly placed there just for hikers to admire. Apparently, the colorful flower displays are not limited to just Cone Peak, for the other mountains sported large swaths of yellow on their shoulders, to go along with their green meadows.

Missy leads the charge up Iron Mountain

After several miles of mouths-agape hiking through the scenery and wildflowers, we rounded Iron Mountain by hiking through a shady forest of mossy fir trees before intersecting with the Iron Mountain Trail. Yup, it was time to hike up Iron Mountain itself, and this trail definitely put the "up" in "yup"

Dizzying view from the trail

Back and forth and always up, the switchbacking trail went to and fro through the ever ubiquitous meadows and wildflowers, affording me the opportunity to gawk or rest, depending on who you listen to. Iron Mountain is a rugged beast, and accordingly, we hiked past a series of rocky outcroppings, jagged cliffs, and one lone arch. The elevation gained served up ever increasing views of the surrounding river valleys and mountains.

Mount Jefferson was like a ghostly pimple

There is a wooden observation deck on the Iron Mountain summit and a 360 degree panorama that allowed us to play the Name-That-Peak game, although a nearby signboard inspired some of us to cheat. Beginning with Diamond Peak to the south, the Cascades stretched north in a successive chain of volcanoes, the taller ones being snowcapped. The Three Sisters, Mount Washington, and Belknap Crater all loomed on the near eastern skyline, but it was snowy Mount Jefferson looming over Scar Mountain that commanded the most attention. Further to the north was Mount Hood and amazingly, we could even see Mount Adams from all the way in southern Washington.

Bunchberry bloomed in bunches

All good things come to an end though, and regrettably, we hiked off Iron Mountain's summit and then down to Tombstone Pass via the Santiam Wagon Road, which is actually a trail that follows the old historical wagon route. The Santiam Wagon Road ran through another shady forest that sported the same wooded and flowered scenery we had started out through, so many epic hours ago.

Iron Woman on the Iron Mountain Trail

So, now Missy and I both know Iron Mountain rocks in July! Not sure if I'm quite ready to say I'll hike here every July, but that's a distinct possibility.

The Cone Peak flower show

For more photos of this hike, please visit the Flickr album.

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Cathedral Hills

What a difference a few months can make! I had first visited Cathedral Hills in late December and the paths were frosted with ice and the woods were mostly brown. Despite those failings, I had been impressed enough with the park that I volunteered to lead a Friends of the Umpqua outing there and about 20 of us set out from the Sky Crest Trailhead. Within a few yards into this hike, a veritable army of showy and ornate red Indian Warrior wildflower plumes were marching into battle to champion the cause of turning green forests red. Clearly, this spring hike would in no way resemble my comparatively drab December foray.

Indian Warriors wins "Best Wildflower in Show"

I'm not sure how a vibrantly colored plume of a wildflower became known as Indian Warrior but it's a more intriguing moniker than pedicularis densiflora, its scientific name. The warriors grow a foot or so high and are parasitic when convenient, usually in the presence of manzanita or madrone. Just like some children, the plants are perfectly capable of living on their own but will parasitize when given the opportunity. In this case, the opportunity presenting itself is when the aforementioned manzanita and madrone root systems are nearby and readily available to be tapped into by the Indian Warriors. If it seems like I've done some undue research on these remarkable plants, it's because I'd never seen them before until I spotted my first specimen about two inches into the hike.

Elegant cat's ear

Even without the eye-catching Indian Warriors, this would have been a good wildflower hike. The terrain was dotted with thin stands of madrone, oak, manzanita, and assorted conifer trees. The vegetation underneath the trees was grassy and green, with wildflowers adding some additional colors to the rampant greenery. Bright magenta-colored shooting stars were displaying their floral pyrotechnics, aided and abetted by small fawn lilies of some sort. California red bells were a thing, and so were dark purple larkspurs to go along with all the other usual springtime suspects.

Trail through oaks either benign or poison

While the wildflowers and spring greenery would have made this a great hike even in poor weather, we enjoyed the extra luxury of hiking on a superb spring day. The sky was colored a deep blue, the air was crisp and clear, and the temperature was mild and perfect for hiking in. The bright sunlight accentuated the virtual rainbow along the trail, ranging from orange-trunked madrones, burgundy-limbed manzanita, bright green oak leaves just leafing out, and the floral rainbow dominated by the scarlet Indian Warriors. There was some reddery to counterpoint the greenery unfortunately, and I refer to the oily red new leaves of poison oak, which was everywhere. Fortunately the wide and well-groomed trails kept the evil itch-spawning plant at bay.

Brought them all back, too!

As leader in charge of this hike and the only one of twenty Friends of the Umpqua members with any knowledge of Cathedral Hills Park, it was incumbent on me not to misplace any of our hikers, an easy thing to do given the plethora of trails and intersections thereof. I'm going to give myself a well-deserved pat on the back here, for having the wisdom and foresight to supply all participants with a map and cue sheet. That way, all the speedier hikers could go on at their own pace while we laggards lagged behind at our own laggardly "speed". I'm glad to report that due to and under my awesome leadership, nobody got lost.

Trail on a wooded ridge crest

Basically our route, beginning at Sky Crest Trailhead, contoured around the east side of the park, dropping down to popular and busy Espy Trailhead. After eating lunch at the ruins of some old structure overgrown by vegetation, we tackled the lone uphill portion of this hike, heading up to the aptly named Sky Crest Trailhead. Here the Outback Loop traces a route atop a ridge photogenically wooded with tall manzanita bushes and scraggly oak trees. Brief openings in the manzanita and trees provided vistas of nearby Peak 3792 and the distant mountain ranges escorting the Rogue River to the sea.

California ground cones were common
only in one spot (that we noticed)

As we crested the high point of the hike, Diane noticed a ground cone blooming underneath a stand of madrone trees. And then we noticed another and another and another, and so on and so forth. There literally hundreds of them, looking like, well, looking like pine cones on the ground, which would be quite the trick for the non-coniferous madrones. Ground cones do not have chlorophyll, so they parasitically attach themselves to the root systems of madrone trees, just like the plentiful Indian Warriors. With so much leeching and grifting off the madrones taking place, it's a wonder that they thrive as they do.

Macro lenses make tiny baby stars look
much larger than they really are

This was the first time that any of my companions had ever hiked at Cathedral Hills and all were duly impressed, with several telling me that they'd have to make this a regular spring destination. Despite the accolades, my tip jar still remained empty but to be honest, enjoying a superb woodland hike with good friends was payment enough!

Shadows play upon the trail

For more photos of this hike, please visit the Flickr album.

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Grizzly Peak

Let's raise our hiking poles in revererntial homage to the memory of Old Reelfoot, a notoriously crafty grizzly bear that terrorized cattle and stockmen in southern Oregon in the mid-1800s. Because of a paw injured by a bear trap, his unique footprint distinguished him from all the other grizzlies hanging around the Siskiyou Mountains and because he managed to elude hunters for so long, he became somewhat of a local legend. His range was mostly in the Pilot Rock area although he made many a hunting foray down into California, making him a wanted bear in two states. He had a good run but in 1890, time ran out for the elusive bear and he was finally hunted down and killed. Posthumously, he enjoyed a brief career as a stuffed and mounted touring exhibit in various museums, expositions, and fairs in the nation, although maybe "enjoyed" might be the wrong word here.

Every time skyrocket blooms, a retina dies

Anyway, in Old Reelfoot's honor, a smallish mountain near Ashland was given the name Grizzly Peak which coincidentally enough is the subject matter of today's blog missive. Grizzly Peak is a short hike, totally incommensurate with Old Reelfoot's fame as a terror of the Siskiyous but on the other hand, I'd hate to run into a grizzly on the trail, no matter the mileage of the hike involved. Deer are scary enough, never mind the bears.

It's a jungle out there!

Because it's a long drive for a short hike from Roseburg, I don't do this hike very often. In fact, this was only the second time I'd ever been to Grizzly Peak. Medford buddies Glen and Carol exposed me to this spectacular hike several years ago and while I was impressed then, I think I was even more appreciative of the rugged beauty this time out as the vegetation was a lot more lush than on my first visit, and that's the difference between hiking on Grizzly Peak in early summer instead of late spring.

But where are the poison oak and ticks?

The trail wasted no time heading uphill at a moderately brisk rate and the first thing I noticed was the lushness of the forest undergrowth. It was a veritable jungle underneath the tall trees what with all manner of plant specie, from tall delphinium to lowly wild ginger, flourishing in riotous exuberance. Orange columbine nodded next to the trail, their dangling tassels reminding me of a graduate's mortarboard. There were so many flowers, like thimbleberry and larkspur, just to namedrop a couple. All this and I hadn't even reached the meadows yet, where the real flower show would take place. Needless to say, my pace was relaxed and slow as I enjoyed the shady trail and wildflower display.

Alien-looking cow parsnip bud

This trail sees a lot of use because of its proximity to Ashland and Medford, and because of its relatively short length. Accordingly, the trail was wide and well kept, almost like a park path. For someone like myself accustomed to scrambling over fallen trees and wading through poison oak bushes, the civilized nature of the trail was most refreshing. 

The ever present Columbia windflower

The actual summit of Grizzly Peak is rather underwhelming, to say the least, looking like a rocky cairn in a sparse meadow surrounded by tall trees. No view, no epic barehanded scramble to the top, no sir. But then again, this hike is all about the meadows, at least immediately after the summit. The pattern for the next mile or so was to walk through alternating low-growing grassy meadows and lushly shaded forest carpeted with thick patches of candy flower. 

An ornate checkered beetle on a fleabane

In the meadows, much photography ensued, for the meadow were chock full of salsify (among many other flowering species), a yellowish sunflowerish bloom attracting a multitude of bees and butterflies. Not to be outdone were salmon polemenium (a salmon-colored Jacob's ladder), mountain-owl clover, sulphur flower, and patches of skyrocket, the brightest colored flower ever. As the trail looped around the broad and flat summit of Grizzly Peak, views of the surrounding terrain awed as they appeared through breaks in the forest cover in a taste of things to come. Although clouds took away the view of nearby Mount McLaughlin and the distant Three Sisters, I spotted Mount Thielsen, Union Peak, and the collective peaks adorning Crater Lake's rim to the northeast of Grizzly Peak.

The trail went through a series of meadows

In 2002, a wildfire started by a sparking power line raged on the west side of Grizzly Peak and nobody really cared, because Oregon's collective attention at the time was focused on the massive Biscuit Fire. The fire here on Grizzly Peak must have burned fairly hot because during the subsequent decades, a forest has yet to return to the western slopes. However, Grizzly's arboreal loss is our hiking gain, for the views here are simply astounding.

That little pimple is Roxy Ann Peak,
overlooking the city of Medford

The hike's flavor transitioned from parklike stroll through the meadows to rugged goat track on the edge of a rocky ridge. Below the rough trail was a lesser mountain which was basically an extension of a west-side ridge of Grizzly Peak. This "little" high point dominated the near view, its rocky ridge and acres of ghostly white snags commanding our attention and respect. The ridge continued north in a series of subsequent high points, culminating in the cone of Roxy Ann Peak, looking puny from here. As an aside, Roxy Ann Peak does not look so puny when hiking up to its summit.

Quite the view of Bear Creek Valley

Beyond Roxy Ann Peak was the wide Rogue Valley with Upper and Lower Table Rocks eminently visible at the edge of the valley. Immediately to the west was deep Bear Creek Valley with the towns of Ashland, Talent, and Phoenix all safely ensconced within. The Lord of all Mountains to the South, a.k.a. Mount Shasta, rose up like the awesome snow-covered volcano it is, while local landmarks Emigrant Lake and Pilot Rock were dwarfed by the giant cone rising over all. 

A bee gets a pollen bath

This was and is my favorite part of the hike. The topography is rugged, the views astound, and on a late June day, the flowers and insects put on a show in the low meadows thriving in the old burn zone. Balsamroot, golden yarrow, common yarrow, and bright red paintbrush were all in full spring song and the winged set of insects such as bees, wasps, hoverflies, butterflies, and moths all flitted and buzzed from flower to flower. Longhorn flower beetles and other horny beetle species waded in the pollen as they fed and frolicked in and on the numerous blooms, and not necessarily in that order. On bare ground baked hard by the sun, dwarf onions waved pink and purple flower pom-poms at the blue sky overhead.

Dwarf onion thrived in the hard, dry soils

The trail crested at a craggy overlook atop the high point of this trail and was a perfect place to eat lunch, sit, admire the view, and generally just ponder the meaning of life or go to whatever happy place your thoughts may take you to. After a totally enjoyable lunch 'n laze, I gathered up my stuff and continued hiking. The path returned to the familiar pattern of meadow to forest to meadow before closing the loop and bringing this short, but totally epic hike to an end.

A salsify captures a hoverfly's attention

Looking at the map of this hike, I noticed that to the north, Antelope Creek does a flow-by of Grizzly Peak. That would be appropriate because what's in my head (which is not always accurate) is that the 2002 fire was called the Antelope, or maybe the West Antelope Fire. However, my copious Internet research performed for this blog post failed to confirm my suppositions one way or another. Also, I searched for anecdotes about Old Prong Horn, the feared antelope scourge of the early pioneers of the Rogue Valley and yes, I'm making that up. Since antelopes live in the southern Oregon desert on the east side of the Cascades, naturally there would be no lore about fierce antelope living on Grizzly Peak, although they could have given Old Reelfoot a literal run for his money.

Oregon geranium was locally common in the burn zone

Fore more photos of this hike, please visit the Flickr album.

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Lemolo Falls

Despite the profound enjoyment received from hiking, one should always be aware there is always an ever present element of danger in any given hike. There are so many ways to get into trouble, from falling trees to landslides to being robbed by rude deer. In my view however, the most dangerous part of hiking is the drive to get there. A recent case in point was on the drive to the trailhead near Lemolo Lake. I was tootling along in that happy empty-mind mode of driving when I felt something crawling on my middle finger. WASP!! I tried shaking it off but the lethally armed insect desperately clung to my middle digit. Finally I just sort of rolled it around between my fingers, frantically scraping it off onto the floor before it could sting me. The malevolent bug was indestructible however, and I could see it already crawling up the car seat to reclaim its rightful throne on my finger. At that point I decided to do the smart thing and pull over and deal with the wasp in a more prudent fashion. It was right then and there I noticed the car drifted across the center line but fortunately no onrushing cars were in the vicinity to further complicate an already complicated situation. Come to think of it, the forest might be safer than the real world!

Ho hum, just another spectacular cascade

That's not to say that the great outdoors does not have it's risk, though. But a lot of trail safety involves risk management decisions, with the outcome dependent on those decisions. For instance, one time I was hiking in the desert when a dreaded rattling sound emanated from the dried grasses in my feet. Rather than scream and flail, I stopped and calmly assessed the situation, located the snake, and made the right move to get out of its venomous reach. But then there's times where in hindsight, I have to ask myself what I was thinking of when deciding what to do, and that was the story on this hike. Spoiler alert: not that big of a deal (this time) and all turned out well but I wanted to make the point that smart people can do dumb things sometimes, like on this hike. 

Small springs seeped onto the trail

Dumb people do smart things on occasion too, and the smartest thing done on this day was simply to get out onto the trail on a warm spring day. Wanting some quality river time with an extra large helping of massive waterfall to go along with, I selected the North Umpqua Trail from Lemolo Lake to Lemolo Falls as the lucky trail of of choice. As the footpath descended through lush woods, it quickly became apparent this would be a good photography day.

A twisted stalk flower hangs like a spider from Mars

The trail was dropping down into the North Umpqua River canyon and the slopes on the right were adorned and bedecked with copious amounts of wildflowers and the slopes on the right had a rushing mountain river flowing below the trail. What to to take photos of? Why, everything, of course! And that again is the story of why I hike so slow.

Columbia windflower plays affable host to a longhorn beetle

It was mostly a white flower slow, with star-flowered Solomon's seal, Columbia windflower, vanilla leaf, inside-out flower, and yellowleaf iris all contributing from that end of the color spectrum. For a little variety in color, columbine (orange), candy flower (pink, sometimes), wild rose (pink, again), and rhododendron (eminently pink) contributed to the floral rainbow. I hardly ever see twisted stalk flowers but did run into a couple of flowering specimens on this hike, their spidery looking flowers dangling below their leaves like so many alien pod babies.

This bug was extremely camera shy

Bugs were crawling all over the vegetation and I added longhorn beetles, lacewings, and one strange bug (who was most camera shy) to my photographic inventory of insects great and small. That shy bug clearly could see me and rotated behind the plant it was on, doing his best to hide from camera view. I finally reached around with one hand and got a quick picture when it split the difference between hand and camera. Still don't know what kind of bug it was, though.

The North Umpqua River, all hike long

The North Umpqua Trail is 78 miles long and I have hiked on most (but not all, amazingly enough) of those miles. The river is not always visible for all of those miles but can be seen often in bits and pieces in many trail segments. However, this river section is one of my favorite river views on all the miles of the NUT that my feet have trod. Here, the river leaps from pool to pool, often doing the leaping via the photogenic medium of scenic cascade or noisy white-watered chute. On a warm day (like this one), the cool air emanating from the river and frequent cascades are always appreciated by overheated hikers.

Thundering Lemolo Falls

After a mile and a half or so, a loud roar announced the presence of Lemolo Falls. The river was still carrying the spring volume so accordingly, the falls were at their cascading best. There is a trail on the other side of the river that provides a great and unimpeded view of the falls but the trail is short so I've never seen it from the other side. From the North Umpqua Trail you get a partial view of the upper half of the falls, although you can get a better view by bushwhacking down a steep slope, holding onto trees for support as you do so. Any complaining about the view being less than all of the falls is just whining in my opinion, for the trade-off is you get a longer hike on the beautiful North Umpqua Trail.

The rhodies were putting on a show

The path below the falls was quickly overtaken by tall rhododendron bushes putting on a spectacular show. The trail was festooned with pink rhodie blossoms and an already slow hike remained slow but the photography was fun. Eventually, the trail dropped down to river level downstream of Lemolo Falls and now we get to talk about the bridge crossing the North Umpqua River.

It was a lot worse than it looked

In years past, a stout wooden bridge crossed the river. Over time and floods, logs began to pile up against the bridge supports. First it was one log, then two, then several and then many severals. You could see the bridge flex and cant to the downstream side with all the weight and pressure of the backed up logs and clearly, it would be just a matter of time before the bridge let go.

Time to walk across a very shaky bridge

The Forest Service sent in a crew to remove the logs and build a stronger bridge. It took some time but the new bridge was made out of metal and was indestructible. Well, at least until a tall tree fell on it. So there I am, looking at this mortally wounded bridge with a "Closed" sign on it and really it didn't look that bad, so I decided to go across. In my defense, if you look at the photos, it really doesn't look that bad, but appearances can be ever so deceiving. The closer to the point of impact, the more the bridge leaned toward the river, and it moved and trembled unsteadily under each of my footsteps. Clearly, this was not the smartest decision I've ever made but at least I did get to the other side of the river unscathed. But, boys and girls, please do as I say and not as I do and avoid scrambling across broken bridges that have "Closed" signs on them.

One of many cascades on the river

I only went about a mile further before backtracking and renegotiating the Challenge of the Bridge. By this time the day had warmed up enough to be considered hot, and it was all uphill to the car. It was still a slow hike, but now my snail's pace had little to do with Mother Nature but more to do with Auntie Gravity as I trudged uphill. Before I began the drive home though, I made a thorough inspection of my car for more wasps, just in case. You see, I do practice safety, except for maybe when it comes to bent and broken bridges.

Random whitewater shot of the North Umpqua

For more photos of this hike, please visit the Flickr album.

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Mount Ashland Meadows

One of our hiking buddies once commented that given the right mood and ambition, he might go on a Richard Hike. And under the same conditions he might go on a Ray Hike. But he would never, ever go on a Richard and Ray Hike! We took it as a compliment. Sadly, my Trail Brother Ray recently passed away and all I've been thinking about is the wonderful adventures we shared in such a short time. We've hiked not only in beautiful weather but have hiked, camped, and backpacked in rain, sleet, snow, ice, thunder, lightning, and gale-force winds. We hiked not only in our Umpqua National Forest but we also trekked in Washington and California, visiting many a remote wilderness area in the process. We slapped at mosquitoes and blackflies, danced away from rattlesnakes, and fought off marauding deer. We walked on beach sand, rocky trails, snow drifts, volcanic ash, and waded across many a creek or river. Sometimes we hiked where there were no trails at all.  And all the while, a steady dialogue of good natured insults were directed at each other. And of course, there was "The Ray", his signature pose where he raised his arms and hiking poles overhead, usually in triumph and glory atop a mountain summit. It seemed like every hike was epic and most certainly were memorable. 

Mount Ashland

When we did not hike with each other, we hiked where the other had not yet been. Upon returning home, the taunting began with "Guess where I went today?" emails going back and forth. It was a ritual of sorts where the tauntee would complain to the tauntor about tainting the trail for future use. Ray and I had talked about doing a weekend backpack trip on the Pacific Crest Trail from Mount Ashland Meadows to Wrangle Gap but for whatever reason, we never pulled it off. We also talked about hiking to Siskiyou Peak as a 12'ish mile out-and-back day hike. And one particular day I did do that very thing and got to taint the trail for Ray. Later on, he did the same hike and shared his pictures with me and even though I had already been, it still felt like a taunt and taint.

Trail marker on the Pacific Crest Trail

So, when the Friends of the Umpqua went hiking on the slopes of Mount Ashland, I went along not only for the magnificent hike, but also to reminisce and to mourn the loss of a good friend. The Pacific Crest Trail doesn't care about all that though, it just lays on the ground and lets people walk on it from Mexico to Canada or vise versa. The PCT thru-hikers usually hit Oregon late July and we encountered many thru-hikers who were easily distinguished by long beards, unshaven armpits, dirty clothing, and a certain air about them that lingered in the forest long after they passed by. And the men were just as bad!

Monkshood

From the paved Mount Ashland Road, the PCT headed through a beautifully shaded forest comprised of tall conifers of various ilk. At the outset, the route took us through several small meadows in a foretaste of the magnificent meadowy goodness yet to come. The meadows were buzzing with bees harvesting pollen from the flowers. The trail was fairly level with gently rolling ups and downs and I sure love a trail with no mosquitoes on it.

Sneezeweed

After a mile or so, the trail crossed a dirt road and contoured across a rather large meadow clinging to Mount Ashland itself. Hellebore (also known as corn lily) was putting on a show along with sneezeweed, orange agoseris, tiger lily, and mountain owl's clover. Mount Ashland's profile (with a white microwave dome thingy on it) was photogenically etched against a dark blue sky.

Grouse Gap, one of my favorite places

The trail did enter the dark forest again but the trend was towards more meadow and less forest to the point where it would be all meadow and no forest. Grouse Gap is the grassy bowl where the transition to meadow becomes complete. Numerous springs and creeklets ran across the trail and the vista of green  slopes and distant mountains and valleys was pretty awesome. The Siskiyou Mountains figuratively dropped away at our feet, providing nice views of the Shasta Valley with Mount Shasta lording its snow-capped peak over us lesser beings. 

Mount Ashland lupine

John, Edwin, and I said good-bye to the hiking club at Grouse Gap and performed a short bushwhack on a pumice barren back up to the PCT. The Mount Ashland lupine, a miniature lupine endemic to the area and found nowhere else, covered the slope in half-inch high mats of grayish leaves and purple flowers. We made sure not to step on the rare and endangered lupine as we hiked up but the grasshoppers apparently find the plant quite tasty and don't care about the rarity thereof.

The PCT climbs to the Siskiyous crest

From Grouse Gap, the trail charged up a rocky cliff that had snow patches under the trees. However, the slope was relatively short so the uphill agony was short-lived, plus it offered a nice view of Mount McLaughlin's tip. And always, Mount Ashland was eminently visible across Grouse Gap. The three of us thought we were hikers extraordinaire until a young lady passed us by, out for a casual 20+ mile trail run. After bidding her adieu, we old and decrepit hikers adjusted our canes and walkers and bravely continued on, at our aged snail's pace.

John and Edwin explore Peak 7079

We called it good at Peak 7079, which was just short of Siskiyou Peak but still a respectable 10+ mile hike. We scrambled up to the top which sounds impressive until you consider the summit was only about 10 feet higher than the trail. But hey, that's how old mountain climbers roll! The terrain here was sparse and treeless so from the relatively small peak, we enjoyed the ho-hum, rather usual stunning vista to Mount Shasta and the rest of California. The view to the south was new and it was Oregon too, so naturally it was more beautiful. 

The Siskiyous are calling me and I must go

Wagner Butte lay immediately to the south and we could trace our route on nearby Mount Ashland. Several other peaks on the crest of the Siskiyous loomed to the southwest, notably Siskiyou Peak, Big Red Mountain, and Observation Peak. And don't you know I want to backpack the Siskiyou Mountains crest one of these days. Music floated up from a nearby spring in form of tinkling cowbells on a herd of cattle grazing in the hellebore. 

The Ray

On the way back, the shadows lengthened in the forest and the meadows were bathed in the afternoon glow. I'd like to say that I put Ray to rest but that'll be a process that will take a lot longer than a mere 10 miles of trail. Let's just say he was sort of with me this day and wherever he is, he'll swear I tainted this particular section of the Pacific Crest Trail. Miss you, Trail Brother.

Cow parsnip

For more pictures of this hike, please visit the Flickr album.