Da-Ku-Be-Te-De Trail #940 – BOOTS on the TRAIL

Collings Mountain Loop (Southwest Oregon) 18-Dec-2020

2020-12-182020-12-24Posted in Hiking, Southern OregonTagged Applegate Lake Oregon, Collings Mountain, Collings Mountain Trail #943, Da-Ku-Be-Te-De Trail #940, Day Hiking, Hiking, Southern Oregon2 Comments

The Friends of the Medford Library (all volunteers) hold book sales, do on-line sales, and run a small bookstore to raise funds to augment the library’s budget. The books sold are those donated to the library. But that was in the Before Time. The library itself was fully closed for a while and is still mostly so. Only recently have limited services once again become available. This has allowed the Friends to resume on-line sales and open the bookstore a few hours a week. So The LovedOne, as a member of the Friend’s board and its treasurer, is once again volunteering in the Cellulose Jungle 🙂 and not available for every hike that comes along. 😦

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Collings Mountain Loop (Southern Oregon) 09-Dec-2019

2019-12-092022-01-31Posted in Hiking, Southern OregonTagged Applegate Lake Oregon, Applegate River Oregon, Collings Mountain, Collings Mountain Trail #943, Da-Ku-Be-Te-De Trail #940, Day Hiking, Hiking, Southern Oregon8 Comments

The storms of winter have finally arrived. The snow depth is growing in the high country. Mount Ashland, our local ski area, opened a week early. Down lower, we’re having rain and fog interspersed with a day or two of clarity. I sought to take advantage of one of these clearings in the mists to do a little stiffer hike. A loop formed by the lower altitude Collings Mountain and Da-Ku-Be-Te-De Trails came to mind. Easy access, a decent climb (1,800 feet), and a fair length (10 miles) seemed just about right.

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Collings Mountain Loop (Applegate Lake) 25-Oct-2018

2018-10-252022-01-30Posted in Hiking, Southern OregonTagged Applegate Lake Oregon, Applegate Valley Oregon, Bigfoot Trap, Collings Mountain, Da-Ku-Be-Te-De Trail #940, Day Hiking, Hiking, Oregon4 Comments

Collings Mountain Trail Applegate Lake Oregon

The Collings Mountain Trail (USFS #943) is one of several trails near Applegate Lake that offer hikers a low-elevation option in the winter months. We last hiked it in late 2016. Today seemed like a good day to do it again, what with some weather (rain ❤ ) finally predicted to be heading our way. Thanks to persistent drought conditions, Applegate Lake is currently almost 100 feet below full pool. We combined the #943 with the Da-Ku-Be-Te-De Trail (USFS #940), which traverses the western shore of the lake between Hart-tish Park and Watkins Campground, to make a nice 10.6 mile, 1,700-foot gain loop. We found two geocaches along the way but didn’t stop to linger at the world famous (we hope) Bigfoot Trap!

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Da-Ku-Be-Te-De Trail (Applegate Lake) 16-Jan-2017

2017-01-172022-01-29Posted in Hiking, Southern OregonTagged Applegate Lake Oregon, Applegate Valley Oregon, Collings Mountain, Da-Ku-Be-Te-De Trail #940, Day Hiking, Hiking, Oregon, Southern Oregon Happy Trails

Da-Ku-Be-Te-De Trail Applegate Lake Oregon

Since we moved to the State of Jefferson, the majority of our hikes have been either solo efforts or just the two of us. In an effort to be more social, we signed up with Southern Oregon Happy Trails (SOHT), our local meet-up group focused on hiking. We had planned to refresh our social skills with them on a hike earlier this month, only to have it canceled by the Great Storm. So, we needed to try again and that opportunity came when Joe – one of the meet-up’s assistant organizers – offered an easy hike on the Da-Ku-Be-Te-De Trail (USFS #940), which traverses the western shore of Applegate Lake between the Swayne Viewpoint Trailhead and Watkins Campground. Unfortunately, when the Library got two big donations over the holiday weekend, the LovedOne had to skip this hike to enhance her social skills by volunteering to sort books and sniff the cellulose.

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Collings Mountain Loop (Applegate Valley) 17-Dec-2016

2016-12-172022-01-29Posted in Hiking, Southern OregonTagged Applegate Lake Oregon, Applegate Valley Oregon, Bigfoot Trap, Collings Mountain, Da-Ku-Be-Te-De Trail #940, Day Hiking, Hiking, Oregon

Collings Mountain Trail Applegate Valley Oregon

The Collings Mountain Trail (USFS #943) is one of several trails in the Upper Applegate Valley that offer hikers a low-elevation option in the winter months. The trail was named for two brothers who mined in the Upper Applegate Valley in the 1850s and 1860s. The hike up past Collings Mountain is a fairly easy one (if done clockwise) through now rare undisturbed low elevation forest, with occasional views both east and west. Today I combined it with the Da-Ku-Be-Te-De Trail (USFS #940), which traverses the western shore of Applegate Lake between Hart-tish Park and Watkins Campground, to make a nice 11 mile loop hike. This loop hike is described in Ruediger’s The Siskiyou Crest (2013) and is Hike #64 in Sullivan’s 100 Hikes in Southern Oregon (3^rd Edition) but was inexplicably left out of Berstein and Urness’ 2014 Hiking Southern Oregon guide. This is a sad and questionable omission given that this Southern Oregon hike passes by what’s believed to be the world’s only Bigfoot Trap!

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