The Stuff We Do
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”
On the up side, the air temperature here has moderated (for the moment) to a reasonable (for August) 80°F (26°C). On the down (very down) side, we’re still wallowing in thick, near toxic, wildfire smoke from the many (too many 😥) fires burning to our south and north. We’re not even supposed to go outside – or at least not breathe if we do. But, drawing on our considerable experience with tough and stupid, we conjured-up a way to do just that. We didn’t materialize one of the great hikes of Southwest Oregon, but it was a route we hadn’t done before and one that featured thinner air and somewhat thinner smoke (at least for a while).
Continue reading “Upper Bull Gap Loop (Mount Ashland, Oregon) 22-Aug-2021”
As the Jack, Bootleg, and Lava Fires sputtered (almost) out, they were quickly replaced by the Dixie (an absolute monster), River Complex, Antelope, Monument, and McFarland Fires, plus a host of other wildfires in Northern California and Southern Oregon. Our valley soon filled with smoke and the air quality index soared into the triple digits (not good). Virus cases in the county have been soaring too. It’s becoming hard to tell which might get our lungs first – the Delta variant or smoke particles. 😬
Continue reading “Siskiyou Peak (Southwest Oregon) 06-Aug-2021”
Siskiyou Peak (7,149 ft / 2,179 m) sits just south of the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) about 3 miles (5 km) west of the Mount Ashland Ski Area. In the summer months, reaching it is an easy and pleasant stroll along a mellow stretch of the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) through meadows gushing with wildflowers and big views of Mount Shasta to the south. When it’s snow-covered, as it is at the moment, getting to it is more work, particularly if you’re clumping along wearing snowshoes. So we decided to give it a go today on the not completely absurd assumption that consolidated Spring snow conditions would make the journey doable sans snowshoes. Well, almost…
Continue reading “No Shoes On Siskiyou (Mount Ashland, Oregon) 31-Mar-2021”
March? So soon? One day we’re buying our annual Sno-Park pass and the next the snow is melting. More storms are forecast but they’ll increasingly bring rain (if we’re lucky) rather than snow. Winter isn’t a protracted business here – our local ski area typically closes at the end of April. In just another month or so, we’ll be going on and on about wildflowers – which, although very good things, are not snow. So although we had some longer hikes in mind for today, we decided instead to do a short, but aerobic, snowshoe sprint to the summit of Mount Ashland. Get the blood flowing. Feel a cold wind in our faces. Discover seemingly bottomless voids in the snow cover. Totter over steep slopes with boards strapped to our feet. Take in the view. Further amortize our snow pass. And so on…
Continue reading “Mount Ashland Snowshoe (Southwest Oregon) 03-Mar-2021”
BOOTS on the TRAIL 