Grayback Mountain – BOOTS on the TRAIL

Grayback Mountain (Southwest Oregon) 18-Aug-2021

2021-08-182021-09-17Posted in Hiking, Southern OregonTagged Day Hiking, Grayback Mountain, Hiking, Rogue River - Siskiyou National Forest, Siskiyou-Boundary Trail, Southern Oregon2 Comments

Wildfires seem to have gotten worse around here since 2014 and this year is no exception. Our valley has been filled with varying concentrations of smoke for weeks from wildfires raging to the north, east, and south of us. Yesterday’s morning of clarity in the Bear Creek Valley was an exception, since, by afternoon, the smoke was back. So it’s entirely on me for not doing an air monitor check before driving all the way to a trailhead. 😥

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Elk Creek to Grayback Mountain 29-Jun-2017

2017-06-292022-01-30Posted in Hiking, Southern OregonTagged Day Hiking, Elk Creek Trail #1230, Grayback Mountain, Hiking, Oregon, Rogue River - Siskiyou National Forest, Siskiyou Crest, Siskiyou-Boundary Trail, Southern Oregon, Williams Oregon

The Elk Creek Trail (USFS #1230) is an odd little trail in that it has a website and a trailhead sign but does not appear on any USGS or USFS maps. In reality, it’s a somewhat worn, moderately steep, but easy to follow trail that climbs from Forest Road (FR) 079 along Elk Creek through heavy woods to a junction with the Boundary Trail (USFS #1207) on the Siskiyou Crest. We first learned of it from Roether’s 2006 Williams Area Trail Guide (Hike #3) and have used it as a shortcut for a hike of Mount Elijah. Both that guide, and the Forest Service website, intimate that you can also use it to reach Grayback Mountain (post), some three miles to the north. So we decided to go see about that for ourselves and also check the condition of the Boundary Trail along the way. Update: Part of the #1207 close to Grayback Mountain was burned by the 2017 Creedence Fire.

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Stein Butte (Southern Oregon) 31-Dec-2016

2016-12-312022-01-29Posted in Hiking, Southern OregonTagged Applegate Valley Oregon, Big Sugarloaf Mountain Oregon, Day Hiking, Grayback Mountain, Hiking, Little Grayback Mountain Oregon, Oregon, Red Buttes Wilderness, Stein Butte Oregon

Stein Butte (USFS #929) is one of the classic hikes in the Upper Applegate Valley of Southern Oregon. It was the last hike we did in 2014 (post), the first full hike we did this year, and one of our first hike & bike efforts (post), so it seemed only fitting that it be our last hike for 2016. The #929 trail is well-maintained, well-graded, and offers sweeping views once you reach the crest of Elliott Ridge.

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Grayback Mountain (Siskiyou Mountains) 18-Aug-2016

2016-08-192022-01-29Posted in Hiking, Southern OregonTagged Applegate Valley Oregon, Day Hiking, Grayback Mountain, Hiking, Krause Cabin, O'Brien Creek Trail, Oregon, Siskiyou Crest, Siskiyou-Boundary Trail, Southern Oregon Happy Trails

Southern Oregon Happy Trails (details) is the meet-up group for hikers in our area. We learned of it shortly after relocating here but, being unfamiliar with the meet-up group concept, thought we’d watch and wait until we’d gained some of our own experience with the trails in this area. Time passed. Then this week we finally decided it was time to give “meet-up” a try when a hike to the summit of Grayback Mountain was posted.

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Grayback Mountain Trail (Williams, Oregon) 29-Mar-2015

2015-03-292022-01-28Posted in Hiking, Oregon, Southern OregonTagged BLM, Bureau of Land Management, Day Hiking, Grayback Mountain, Grayback Mountain Trail, Hiking, Oregon, Siskiyou Crest, Siskiyou Crest Trail Oregon, Siskiyou-Boundary Trail, Southern Oregon, Williams Oregon, Windy Gap Oregon

The Siskiyou Crest Trail – which circles the Red Buttes Wilderness to the south and west – is an amalgam of different trails, which we have been enjoyably cherry-picking for several months now. On most maps, and in the Forest Service literature, the northern terminus of the Crest Trail (where it is the Boundary Trail (USFS #1207)) is at Windy Gap just north of Grayback Mountain. It always seemed odd that the trail would just end at some saddle in the mountains. So I dug a little deeper and discovered that this abrupt end was true up until 2006, when the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and volunteers from Williams, Oregon finished the Grayback Mountain Trail from outside Williams up to Windy Gap – thus extending the Crest Trail to a length of almost 50 miles from Cook and Green Pass to Williams. None of the topo maps, and only one of the guidebooks, for this area seem to be aware of this trail. Thus we had to go explore it.

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