Newly Released Online! The premiere screening of Sagebrush to Sea: A Journey Across the Siskiyou Crest took place in November 2021 in Ruch, Oregon. Since then we have held film showings in Selma, Medford, Phoenix, Ashland and Jacksonville, with over 250 people coming out to enjoy the visual journey along the Siskiyou Crest, from Siskiyou Summit to the coast in Crescent City. After many great opportunities for people to see the film and engage in Q&A in person, Sagebrush to Sea: A Journey Across the Siskiyou Crest is now available to be viewed online for free! Now you can sit back and relax and enjoy the journey across the Siskiyou Crest with us, and get ready for the upcoming hiking season this summer! For more detailed information about the film, the route and trails we took along the way, and resources you can use to do the backpacking trip yourself, check out the Sagebrush to Sea: A Journey Across the Siskiyou Crest page, or Facebook page.

During the first week of April, I spent some time in the field monitoring the impact of dozerline construction during the 2021 fire season in the Pattison Inventoried Roadless Area. What I witnessed was the appalling disregard for the land’s unique natural, scenic and recreational values during suppression of the 2021 Monument Fire. What I also saw was a rugged and beautiful landscape with deep canyons, steep rocky ridges, beautiful mixed conifer forests and a spectacular mixed severity fire mosaic. Although forest and fire managers used their discretion to implement damaging, often ineffective and unnecessary dozerlines in highly inappropriate locations, from a biological standpoint, the effects of the Monument Fire were highly beneficial. Overall, the 224,688-acre Monument Fire burned at 67% low, 29% moderate and 4% high severity. In the Pattison Inventoried Roadless Area, the fire largely maintained old forest habitats, renewed plant communities, increased heterogeneity...

Despite direction provided directly from Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsak to protect wilderness values in the proposed Pattison Wilderness Area, forest and fire managers created extensive, often unnecessary, and extremely damaging dozerlines throughout the wildland during the 2021 Monument Fire. Photo Credit: Kent Collard For more than 30 years Klamath Forest Alliance (KFA) has been working to address impacts to wildland landscapes and biological values throughout the Klamath-Siskiyou Mountains and beyond. Since 2012, KFA has run the innovative and one-of-a-kind Klamath-Siskiyou Fire Reports Program. This program documents, highlights and explores both the impacts of industrialized fire suppression activities on regional wildlands, cultural resources and biological values, and the beneficial effects of mixed severity fire in the ecosystems of the Klamath-Siskiyou Mountains and beyond. In the past ten years we have released 12 fire reports, exploring wildfires from across the...

Federal land management agencies are increasingly utilizing Categorical Exclusions to circumvent the public involvement and environmental review process. By utilizing a Categorical Exclusion they can expedite public land management projects while minimizing oversight, reducing transparency and limiting scientific review. This allows for less analysis, less consideration of public concerns, less thoughtful, and less effective land management projects. Mt. Ashland as seen from McDonald Peak. In September 2021, the Klamath National Forest approved the Road 20 Project utilizing a Categorical Exclusion for “road maintenance and repair.” It was approved with absolutely no public comment, no public analysis of environmental effects, and no public notification either before or after the Decision was made. The Road 20 Project authorized the paving of currently gravel roads to the summit of Mt. Ashland, the highest peak on the Siskiyou Crest, and on Road 20 to Grouse Gap Shelter...

Join us for a Sagebrush to Sea film showing in Ashland at SOU on January 12 at 7 PM. For more information check out the facebook event!