Aspen Butte Oregon – BOOTS on the TRAIL

Mystic Lake (Mountain Lakes Wilderness) 19-Oct-2021

2021-10-192021-11-02Posted in Hiking, Oregon Wilderness Areas, Southern OregonTagged Aspen Butte Oregon, Clover Creek Trail, Day Hiking, Hiking, Mountain Lakes Loop Trail, Mountain Lakes Wilderness Oregon, Mystic Lake Oregon, Southern Oregon4 Comments

Last September, Lee Juillerat wrote a piece for our local paper, the Mail Tribune, reminiscing about a trip he’d made to Mystic Lake, which sits at 7,200 feet (2,195 m) in the nearby Mountain Lakes Wilderness. I had passed near this little lake when I did the Mountain Lakes Loop in 2015 but didn’t have time to divert then for a visit. So I put Mystic on the seemingly bottomless hikes to do list, intending it for a late summer hike. Then heat, smoke, other hikes, other adventures, and personal business intervened and voilà it was mid-October. And La Niña was back – bringing with it rain and the first snows of winter. Was it now too late to reach Mystic without snowshoes?

Continue reading →

Getting to the Point (Mountain Lakes Wilderness) 11-Jul-2020

2020-07-112020-07-12Posted in Hiking, Oregon Wilderness Areas, Southern OregonTagged Aspen Butte Oregon, Clover Creek Trail, Clover Lake Oregon, Day Hiking, Hiking, Mountain Lakes Loop Trail, Mountain Lakes Wilderness Oregon, Southern Oregon, Whiteface Peak Oregon4 Comments

Southern Oregon’s Mountain Lakes Wilderness (the U.S.’s only wilderness with a perfectly square boundary) was once believed to be the caldera of one huge collapsed volcano (like Crater Lake to the north). But more recent research suggests it was created from calderas of four overlapping shield volcanoes. Eight prominent peaks – and several lesser ones – remain on the rim of these calderas. Aspen Butte (8,208 ft / 2,501 m) is the highest point in the wilderness but there are several other rocky summits that offer spectacular views of the surrounding area and as far south as Mount Shasta. Today we decided to take advantage of some excellent weather to take in the views from Point 7703 located between Whiteface Peak and Greylock Mountain.

Continue reading →

Hiking Southern Oregon: 25 Hikes (February 2020)

2020-02-052022-02-06Posted in Hiking, Southern OregonTagged Aspen Butte Oregon, Big Red Mountain Oregon, Blue Grotto Oregon, Blue Lake Group Oregon, Collings Mountain, Day Hiking, Devils Peak Oregon, East ART, Grizzly Peak (Jackson County), Heavenly Twin Lakes Oregon, Hiking, Hobart Bluff Oregon, Kerby Peak, Lower Table Rock Oregon, Mount Ashland Oregon, Mount McLoughlin, Muir Creek Oregon, Pilot Rock Oregon, Puck Lakes Oregon, Seven Lakes Trail #981, Southern Oregon, Squaw Peak Oregon, Stein Butte Oregon, Sterling Mine Ditch Trail, Takelma Gorge, Upper Table Rock Oregon, Wagner Butte, Whisky Creek Cabin10 Comments

To celebrate our 600^th post on WordPress, we’re highlighting a select few of the many hikes we’ve enjoyed here in Southwest Oregon.

As we’ve perused lists of Oregon’s greatest hikes, we’ve come to notice that these lists are heavily skewed, with a few exceptions, toward hikes near Portland. That metro area’s greater population helps if a list is based on some kind of vote. And proximity to its major airport helps get votes from those who drop in for a brief Western adventure. Even some of the classics, like the Wallowas in Eastern Oregon or the Three Sisters in Central Oregon, often don’t make these lists because they are too far away. So a lot of “great” hikes get done near Portland – the state’s most populated town. And then the complaints roll in about how there’s no parking, the trails are too crowded, you need a permit or must pay a fee, it’s raining, etc.

Continue reading →

Aspen Butte (Mountain Lakes Wilderness) 26-Aug-2017

2017-08-262022-01-30Posted in Hiking, Oregon Wilderness Areas, Southern OregonTagged Aspen Butte Oregon, Day Hiking, Hiking, Lake Harriette Oregon, Mount McLoughlin, Mount Shasta, Mountain Lakes Wilderness Oregon, Oregon, Southern Oregon4 Comments

Aspen Butte Mountain Lakes Wilderness Oregon

At the moment, there are approximately 130,000 acres (200 square miles) of wildfires burning to the north, west, and south of the Rogue Valley. Needless to say, air quality in the valley sucks (if it were possible to breath-in). And, with air temperatures pushing into the triple digits, even Mordor is beginning to look like a better alternative. And yet, after two delightful weeks of “floating and bloating” on the Salmon River (post), I (or, more accurately, my now bulging gut) needed a hike. But where? Someplace reasonably close, yet high enough for clearer air, and to the east of the wildfires (some of which, sadly, are busy burning away nearby hikes – like Grayback Mountain and Stuart Falls – that we’d enjoyed only a few months ago). After bringing an extra brain cell online, I decided that a hike up Aspen Butte in the Mountain Lakes Wilderness was my best choice. At 8,208 feet, it’s the highest point in this wilderness and thus a likely place to find fresher air. The LovedOne – once again suspecting my sanity – opted instead to spend the day volunteering in the cool, filtered air provided by the county library. Sigh (gasp, hack, wheeze…).

Continue reading →

Aspen Butte (Mountain Lakes Wilderness) 06-Jun-2015

2015-06-062022-01-28Posted in Hiking, Oregon Wilderness Areas, Southern OregonTagged Aspen Butte Oregon, Clover Creek Trail, Day Hiking, Hiking, Lake Harriette Oregon, Mount Harriman Oregon, Mountain Lakes Wilderness Oregon, Southern Oregon

Aspen Butte (8,208 feet) is the high point in the six mile square Mountain Lakes Wilderness just west of Klamath Falls, Oregon. In 2007, Terry Richard (The Oregonian’s outdoor writer) climbed the butte and described this wilderness as “…unappealing, although the lakes down below must have their charms.” we thought this comment was a bit harsh and dismissive. Given how little wilderness there is, and how hard it is to get, dissing what we have seems counter-productive. Sullivan, on the other hand, describes the loop trail as gorgeous. Never having visited a wilderness area that we couldn’t find to love in some way, we headed out to test the charms of the Mountain Lakes for ourselves. There are three trailheads into this wilderness – Varney Creek, Mountain Lakes, and Clover Creek; the latter is the start of the shortest path to Aspen Butte.

Continue reading →

To celebrate our 600th post on WordPress, we’re highlighting a select few of the many hikes we’ve enjoyed here in Southwest Oregon.

To celebrate our 600^th post on WordPress, we’re highlighting a select few of the many hikes we’ve enjoyed here in Southwest Oregon.