A view of the Hinkle Lake Basin and Whisky Peak from the summit of Arnold Mountain. Recently I submitted the Applegate Valley OHV Monitoring Reports and Motorized Vehicle Closure Petitions to the BLM and Forest Service. Both the BLM and Forest Service have acknowledged receipt of these documents and I am awaiting their official response.  The reports document the impacts of OHV use in the Applegate Valley and the petitions request official closure and/or decommissioning of unauthorized and damaging OHV trails. Many local residents helped to support this project by signing on to the petition, providing me with tips and information about OHV routes, and funding the Kickstarter campaign that made it all possible. Thank you all for your support.  I would like to specifically thank those who funded my Kickstarter campaign and supported the Applegate Valley OHV Monitoring Project. Below are all the people that made the monitoring reports and petitions...

OHV use is impacting many of the Botanical Areas designated to protect rare plant species and unique plant communities on the Siskiyou Crest. The Siskiyou Crest OHV Monitoring Report documents these impacts and recommends solutions. Please read the report and sign onto our petition for OHV closure on the Siskiyou Crest. The Applegate Valley OHV Monitoring Project, the Siskiyou Crest Blog and Klamath Forest Alliance have joined forces to document the impact of OHV use on public land in the Applegate River watershed. In May, the Siskiyou Crest Blog initiated a successful Kickstarter campaign to fund the Applegate Valley OHV Monitoring Project. Thanks to the support of the local community the project was funded. Since June, I have hiked many miles of OHV routes in the blazing summer heat, spent countless hours writing and organizing reports, documenting the impacts and recommending management solutions. Now we need your help to make the biggest impact possible.  I...

North Fork of the Salmon River on July 6, 2015 following severe thunderstorms. The turbidity and sedimentation from this event turned 230 miles of the Klamath River brown and turbid, from Beaver Creek to the mouth of the River near Klamath Glen. (Photo: Scott Harding)            The fires on the Klamath River in 2014 burned on a vast scale across over 200,000 acres in the Klamath, Scott, and Salmon River watersheds. The fires burned in a mixed severity fire mosaic, including many acres of low severity understory fire and some large high severity burn patches. Most of these high severity patches burned during extreme weather conditions, including high winds and temperatures. At other times fires burned intensely when inversion layers lifted and created unstable atmospheric conditions. These high severity burn patches include areas of nearly complete tree mortality, where soils were, at times, scorched, causing them to...

The Dakubetede Roadless Area from upper Birch Creek. The Dakubetede Roadless Area is located in the Little Applegate River watershed on the south-facing slopes of Anderson Butte and the surrounding ridgelines. Local environmentalists have long fought to keep this relatively intact piece of the Applegate Valley foothills wild, unroaded, and mostly undisturbed. In acknowledgement of the area’s unique and important wildland values, the BLM has recently identified 5,099 acres of land within the Dakubetede Roadless Area as “land with wilderness characteristics” (LWC). Located in the rain shadow of the Siskiyou Mountains’ highest summits, and at the eastern-most portion of the range, the area is the driest watershed in Western Oregon. The watershed contains a diverse and unique mixture of Pacific Northwest forest species and high desert species, as well as California oak woodland and chaparral associates. The largest population of western juniper...

The view from Wellington Butte looking southeast to Ruch, Oregon in the Applegate Valley. The Wellington Butte Roadless Area was identified by the BLM as an area containing 5,711 acres of “lands with wilderness characteristics.” Relatively intact, low-elevation habitat such as that found in the foothills of the Applegate Valley is increasingly rare and in desperate need of protection. The Wellington Butte Roadless Area in the Middle Applegate River watershed is a wonderfully diverse and beautiful region. The region hosts a complex mosaic of chaparral, oak woodland, madrone groves, mixed conifer forest, and grasslands. The Wellington Butte Roadless Area has recently been identified in the BLM’s Lands with Wilderness Characteristic Inventory (LWC) as one of the last significant roadless tracts of BLM land in western Oregon. Located directly above Ruch and Applegate, Oregon the region is the backdrop for much of the Middle Applegate Valley. The...