Outdoor Adventures in Minnesota and Beyond…
Mount McLoughlin dominates the eastern horizon here, but it’s Mount Ashland (7,532 ft / 2,295 m) – with its ski area and the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) and wildflower meadows and views – that draws the crowds. It’s summit is not as distinctly visible as McLoughlin’s but, if you can pick out a giant white ball, you’re seeing Mount Ashland.
Continue reading “Mount Ashland (Southwest Oregon) 01-Apr-2022”
Winter here got off to a strong start, with a magnificent snow dump over the Christmas holidays. This encouraged what were, perhaps, optimistic expectations. We thought that this first big snowfall would settle, additional snow would follow, and then we’d go snowshoeing under “ideal” conditions. But after that big one, it’s been nothing but clear skies, warm days, cold nights, and dry, dry, dry. That earlier snow has been melting and compacting for weeks. So, rather than wait for mythical “ideal” conditions, we decided to just put on our snowshoes and go.
Continue reading “Burton Butte (Southwest Oregon) 06-Feb-2022”
At about 9,100 acres (3,682 ha), Horseshoe Ranch is the largest piece of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument within California. The ranch (officially the Horseshoe Ranch Wildlife Area) was added to the Monument in 2017. We paid our first visit here late last year and enjoyed a hike up Slide Ridge and down along Scotch Creek through shrubs, oaks, and conifers. We returned today – in brilliant sunshine and unseasonable warmth – to follow another old ranch road and explore the area around Brushy Creek. We even got a California Lands Pass for this visit.
Continue reading “Horseshoe Ranch II (Cascade-Siskiyou NM) 23-Jan-2022”
The first major storm of winter is apparently heading our way. Not to get all excited or anything but snow deeper than a tall snail might be in the offing. We wanted to get in a hike before this snowy tsunami arrives. Plan A – Spence Mountain – was shelved because a long hike on a short day ahead of a storm seemed like a sub-optimal idea. Plan B – some explorations at Lower Table Rock – was pulled because dense fog clogged both the valley and the Rock. Plan C – Songer Butte – became a go when we saw sunlight on the traffic camera near it. Plan C also featured the strong selling point of lunch at Caldera Brewing in Ashland. 🤗
Continue reading “Songer Butte (Ashland, Oregon) 10-Dec-2021”
The rains came and flushed the smoke and damped the wildfires. But the wet didn’t kill all of them. The McCash Fire in Northern California came back to life, an arsonist started a fire near Lake Shasta, and two fires in Central California are still busy devouring some staggeringly ancient Sequoias. 😥 More rain is expected early next week. Hopefully, that will knock some more stuffing out of some of these fires. 🙂 In the meantime, we’re supposed to be getting some of their smoke – but none of that seems to have arrived yet (it would be totally fine if it doesn’t – totally fine). Right now it’s more than clear enough for a short hike before we hit the road next week.
Continue reading “Grizzly Peak (Cascade-Siskiyou NM) 24-Sep-2021”
For our third and last hike in the Mount Shasta area, we needed something scenic but not hard. No big elevation gains or ceaseless ups and downs. While exploring our options, we came across the loop trail around Lake Siskiyou (“Lake Sis”), which is just west of Mount Shasta. At just under 7 miles (11 km), with no appreciable changes in elevation, it was ideal for our purposes (and our diminished leg muscles). The LovedOne had determined (after extensive calculations) that, if we got started early enough and hiked energetically enough, we could reach Ashland in time for lunch at Caldera Brewing. Another pure genius moment on The LovedOne’s part. 😁
Continue reading “Lake Siskiyou Loop (Mount Shasta, CA) 22-Jul-2021”
We made a modest donation to the Soda Mountain Wilderness Council and they sent us a newsletter, which, among other things, listed four off-beat hikes in the Monument and Soda Mountain Wilderness. We’d done three of the four but the fourth, a loop past Green Mountain (not to be confused with Green Springs Mountain) from the road to Boccard Point, was new to us. It looked like a 4 mile (6.4 km) loop that would fit neatly into the pleasant morning of a day forecast to end with clouds, wind, and rain (which it did 😀).
Continue reading “Green Mountain (Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument) 13-Jun-2021”
Rhyolite Ridge is a bench that curves around below Point 5401 (“Rhyolite Point”) on the western edge of the Soda Mountain Wilderness. We first learned of it from William Sullivan’s Southern Oregon hiking guides. It’s a short diversion, on what was is now a much faded old ranch road, from the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT). Going out to it gives you sweeping views of the peaks (most notably Mount Shasta) and valleys to the south. Its south-facing aspect also encourages early season emergence of some unique wildflowers such as the Dwarf Hesperochiron and Yellow Fritillary. We’ve hiked out to the Ridge several times from the PCT, as have others judging from how a single-track has now formed in the old road.
Continue reading “Backdoor to Rhyolite Ridge (Soda Mountain Wilderness) 09-Apr-2021”
Today we fell back. In time that is. We may soon be falling back to the Dark Ages but that’s still to be decided. The ostensible purpose of this “falling back” and “springing forward” (Could we even do this without these catchy phrases?) is to give us more daylight in the summer months thus saving energy and reducing crime (True, you hardly ever see Time Bandits wandering around during summer.). Of course doing so completely messes with our primordial circadian rhythms (note: not a jazz quartet) leading to confusion, grumpiness, intemperate emails, and utterly artful (but still shameful) exposures during Zoom meetings. So sad. 😥 I’ll bet the Neanderthals would still be around if they hadn’t decided that daylight saving (not savings) time would give them an extra hour to hunt cave bears (or visa versa as it apparently turned out). Frankly, I think it’s a waste of time doing all this falling and springing. Let’s just pick a time and stick with it! And damn the Time Bandits!
Continue reading “Green Springs to Hobart (Southern Oregon) 01-Nov-2020”
The last time Jennifer (former colleague and long-time friend) and I did a hike together was when she introduced me to the Mountain of the Rogue in 2018. This week she was down here helping her parents and reached out to see if we could do a hike. Absolutely! I’d been in a bit of a hiking dry-spell for the last few days what with work (my side hustle has its moments), fiendishly fickle weather (I’m going to rain; no, no I’m not, just cloudy; no, wait, how about some snow; no, no snow, let’s just do overcast gloom and a little drizzle, shaken not stirred…), the library’s quarterly book sale, and vague concerns about “the virus.” So it was definitely time for the boots again. The LovedOne was sidelined with a publicity meeting for the library. 😦
Continue reading “Emigrant Lake (Ashland, Oregon) 10-Mar-2020”
Today was forecast to be the last sunny day before a multi-day weather event arrived. It had been sunny for the past two days but The LovedOne had managed to spend those in meetings at the library. I vowed that she must again see the light of day! Using the heady cellulose-rich scent of old paperback books (old romance novels are particularly fragrant) to lure her into the car, I then drove wantonly to Emigrant Lake outside Ashland, Oregon. By the time the cellulose fumes wore off, we were standing at the start of the Songer Butte Trail at the end of the Old Greensprings Highway under crisp, clear, sunny skies. 🙂
Continue reading “Songer Butte Loop (Ashland, Oregon) 12-Feb-2020”
BOOTS on the TRAIL 