We returned from the East to find the Rogue Valley buried in smoke from the Mile 97 Fire burning to the north. The smoke was thick enough to abort our first attempt at landing. We made it in on the second try after returning to Portland to refuel. By today, aggressive firefighting had brought the Mile 97 to bay and the smoke had diminished. Leaving The LovedOne to her air conditioned library duties, I headed to the Siskiyou Crest to do an out-and-back from Green Valley to Mount Elijah on the Boundary Trail #1207.
The Green Valley Trail #904 is another one of those trails (like the Steve Peak Trail #908) that still appears on USGS and Forest Service maps but has been dropped from the Rogue-Siskiyou National Forest’s inventory (and website). It no longer receives any maintenance but has been kept alive by hunters who have marked key turns in its tread with large cairns. The trailhead on Forest Road 1030-500 (easily accessible to 2WD vehicles) is marked only with some metal tags nailed to a tree on the bank of a spring-fed babbling brook.
From the trailhead, old #904 soon crosses a spring-fed creek and then climbs quickly (700 feet in 0.7 miles) to a vague and unsigned (except for a rock cairn) junction with the Boundary Trail in Green Valley. Up here there was little smoke and a lot of fragrant wildflowers being worked over by flocks of butterflies and bumble bees.
From its junction with the Green Valley Trail to its junction with the Mount Elijah Trail #1206, the Boundary Trail was free of obstacles and easy to follow. This openness is thanks mostly to the motorcycles which are allowed to use the trail at certain times of the year. There aren’t enough hikers to keep it clear of fallen trees and brush nor does the Forest Service give it much maintenance. The Siskiyou Mountain Club has worked on part of it but the trail is long and their resources are limited. I guess the good news is that there were only a few places where the motorcycles had really dug in and gouged the trail – a lot of the time I could hardly tell they’d been here.
On my way north, on the side of Craggy Mountain, I did a short bushwhack to the remains of Denman (or Craggy) Cabin. It had been built as a line shack around 1940 and used for decades thereafter by hunters. Today it’s just a pile of kindling mixed with a few old stove parts. 😦
Past the cabin site, I traversed through the large, wildflower-filled meadows around Horse Spring. If there’s any surface water here, it’s not obvious.
From Horse Spring, I continued on past Elkhorn Prairie to the Boundary Trail’s now less-than-obvious (I seem to recall it was more evident back in 2015) junction with the #1206. The #1206 switchbacks (seemingly endlessly) up to a junction with the Lake Mountain / Bigelow Lake Trail #1214 on the east side of Oregon Caves National Monument. From there, it was short walk to the higher of the two Mount Elijahs.
After a brief stay on the summit for a snack and the view, I retraced my steps back to Green Valley and the trailhead. I’d carefully noted the junction of the Boundary and Green Valley Trails because there’s not much there to signal a turn and going right by it is a possibility.
This turned-out to be a surprisingly excellent hike (12 mile round-trip, 2,900 feet of gain). 😀 The burned campfire smell of wildfire smoke was below me, leaving the pleasing fragrances of piney woods and wildflower meadows. The weather was excellent – cool and breezy most of the day, only heating-up just before I got back to the trailhead. The Green Valley Trail, although faded and steep, is a great way to visit some of the big wildflower meadows between Green Valley and Elkhorn Prairie. 🙂
BOOTS on the TRAIL 
Definitely put us on your “to do” list – there’s a lot to see here. We have deserts, mountains, and oceans all within a day (or less) of one another. Plus cultural stuff too.
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Looks amazing! I really need to visit Oregon one of these days!
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