Author: Luke Ruediger

This large Douglas fir tree will be logged in unit 28-4.  The Pickett West Timber Sale is so huge that it will likely be broken up into numerous timber sales when auctioned off to the highest bidder. The BLM has not even finished the comment period for the Pickett West Timber Sale, but has moved forward with timber sale marking and design in the first timber sale. The first sale proposed by the BLM is called the Pickett Hog Timber Sale and will extend from Pickett Creek on the Rogue River, downstream to Hog Creek and Hellgate Canyon.  South Fork Panther Gulch Recently, I hiked into two units in Panther Gulch, a tributary of Pickett Creek and a beautiful little canyon of oak woodland, forests of sugar pine and Douglas fir, bedrock cascades and stark serpentine openings studded with jeffery pine.  The area is diverse and relatively intact. The lower portion of Panther Gulch was roaded and logged many years ago. The upper portion of the canyon is...

A view into Ruch, Oregon from the East Applegate Ridge Trail (ART). The Applegate Trails Association (ATA) has released “Walking the Wild Applegate” to viewers online. The film documents the first thru-hike on the Jack-Ash and Applegate Ridge Trails. Together, the non-motorized trail system will connect the communities of Grants Pass and Ashland, Oregon. The trails will extend over 80 miles through the rugged foothills of the Applegate Valley, including the Dakubetede, McDonald Peak and Wellington Butte Roadless Areas. ATA has also released a link to an online petition in support of the Applegate Ridge Trail. We need a showing of support to continue building trail. We are working to gain approval through the Medford District BLM on the next section of trail. We believe BLM needs a little positive reinforcement. Please sign on in support of the trail! Please, sit back, enjoy the film and the beautiful scenery of the Siskiyou Mountains. After seeing the...

Unit 10-1 of the Pickett West Timber Sale is located on Zig-Zag Creek in beautiful old-growth forest habitat. The unit would be logged to 30% canopy cover under the BLM’s so-called “forest restoration” prescriptions. The Pickett West Timber Sale is a massive BLM timber sale proposed by the Grants Pass Resource Area. The proposed project area extends from southern Oregon’s lower Applegate River, to the forests outside Selma, and the wild tributary streams of the mighty Rogue River. The timber sale includes 69 units between 150 and 240 years old. Prescriptions in these units vary, but many would be logged to as low as 30% canopy cover; many large old trees would be removed to meet canopy cover and basal area targets. Ironically, the BLM has defined these heavy industrial logging treatments as “forest restoration,” a term now so broadly applied that it has virtually no meaning. Unfortunately, the outcome of such logging will be far from...

Unit 13-1 of the Pickett West Timber Sale is an isolated stand of old-growth forest in heavily logged and fragmented Cheney Creek, a major tributary in the Lower Applegate River Watershed. The BLM claims the general stand age within the unit is 150 years old, although individual trees in the stand are likely far older. The stand is currently categorized as nesting, roosting and foraging (NRF) habitat for the northern spotted owl, but BLM intends to log the stand to 40% canopy cover, downgrading owl habitat by dropping the canopy cover threshold to the low end of dispersal habitat. Unit 13-1 should be canceled. The Trump administration has initiated massive rollbacks of environmental regulations that protect clean water, clean air, climate protection, wildlands, and endangered species. Trump’s environmental deregulation is also pushing public land managers to increase logging and industrial resource extraction on our public lands, including the forests of...

The forested slope in the foreground is the Snail Gulch unit of the Pickett West Timber Sale. The Pickett-West Timber Sale is a sprawling proposal by the Grants Pass BLM. The planning area extends across southwestern Oregon, from Merlin and Galice on the Rogue River, to Selma and Deer Creek in the Illinois River area. The sale also extends into the Applegate Valley near Wilderville, Murphy and North Applegate Road. The project would log thousands of acres, build miles of new road, and increase fuel hazards by removing large, fire-resistant trees, dramatically reducing canopy cover and encouraging dense shrubby understory fuel. Although the Grants Pass BLM claims to be implementing this project under the Applegate Adaptive Management Area — a land-use designation intended to facilitate community collaboration, innovative land management, and a more transparent planning process — the BLM has refused to collaborate with Applegate Neighborhood Network (ANN), other local...