A view from the Applegate Ridge Trail into the Wellington Butte Roadless Area. The Applegate Trails Association (ATA) is a non-motorized trail organization dedicated to creating and preserving non-motorized trails in the Applegate Valley, while encouraging respect for our natural environment. Having started five years ago today, on April 23, 2011, the group has become a strong local voice promoting non-motorized recreation and advocating for protection of the Wellington Butte Roadless Area. In 2013 the BLM designated the Wellington Butte Roadless Area as “Lands with Wilderness Characteristics.” This designation can largely be attributed to ATA’s unrelenting advocacy for the Wellington Butte Roadless Area.  ATA’s largest project is the creation of the Applegate Ridge Trail (ART). The ART is a 40-mile-long, non-motorized trail proposed to extend from Jacksonville, Oregon to Grants Pass, Oregon. Numerous miles of the trail would skirt the...

Extensive blowdown in unit 61-1 of the O’Lickety Timber Sale. Canopy reduction was drastic in many logged units in the O’Lickety Timber Sale, leaving the remaining trees more susceptible to mortality associated with blowdown, drought stress and beetle infestations. The BLM’s O’Lickety Timber Sale was logged by the Murphy Company in November of 2013. The BLM’s Environmental Assessment (EA) for the sale claimed all logging units would “treat and maintain” northern spotted owl habitat, meaning existing habitat designations would not be compromised by logging treatments. Analysis in the BLM’s EA and United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) consultation was based on a presumption that “treat and maintain” prescription parameters would be met. Unfortunately, the prescriptions and tree removal mark approved by the BLM failed to meet the requirements identified to “maintain” northern spotted owl...

The view south from Bald Mountain and across the Little Applegate River watershed from the proposed Jack-Ash Trail. This area is one of the scenic highlights of this proposed long distance hiking trail that would connect the communities of Ashland and Jacksonville, Oregon. The BLM has proposed to log directly adjacent to the proposed Jack-Ash Trail on Bald Mountain. All logging units on Bald Mountain should be canceled. These forests provide a larger contribution to our quality of life and economy as standing forests than they do logged off and sent to the mill.  The Bald Mountain area is a wild and beautiful region located at the headwaters of the Little Applegate River. The mountain supports a distinct variety of plant communities, including open and grassy balds, shrub fields, rock outcrops, old-growth forest, late seral forest and small sections of oak woodland. The mountain is also an important connectivity corridor, connecting the high elevation McDonald Peak...

Looking southeast across the Buncom Roadless Area to unit 14-30. The unit would be logged to 40% canopy cover. The unit boundaries are outlined in red in the photo above. The proposed new road is depicted in blue. One of the two new helicopter landings is located at the light blue triangle near the center of the photo.  The Buncom Roadless Area is a small, rugged wildland on the ridgeline dividing the Upper Applegate and Little Applegate Valleys. Although small in size, the region dominates the skyline of the Little Applegate Valley from its confluence with the Applegate River to above Buncom and the Upper Applegate Valley up to Star Ranger Station. Cloaked in chaparral, oak woodland, stands of live oak and isolated conifer forests, the roadless area provides relatively undisturbed low elevation habitat, a highly scenic natural setting for many rural residential properties, and habitat connectivity between the Little and Upper Applegate Valleys.  I recently...

Some of the most beautiful oak woodland in the Applegate Valley is located in fuel reduction unit F-30 of the Nedsbar Timber Sale. On a gentle, east-facing slope, directly above the farms and pasture land at the confluence of Yale Creek and the Little Applegate River, is a beautiful series of dry meadows surrounded by massive, wide-branching white oak. This isolated oak habitat is one of the most intact oak woodlands in the Applegate Valley, including many old-growth oak trees. The stand supports a mixture of stand structures and types, including oak woodland, oak savanna, and closed oak forest. In many cases, these three major stand types are scattered about in a random mosaic among small thickets of buckbrush or manzanita, open-grown pine, and broad, grassy meadows.  This magical piece of the Applegate Valley foothills is also identified as fuel reduction unit F-30 in the Nedsbar Timber Sale; in fact, it is the largest unit proposed in the timber sale, despite being...