The Hinkle Lake Basin with Whisky Peak in the background This past weekend I visited a favorite place of mine. I drove up the Middle Fork of the Applegate River to the Fir Glade Trailhead and hiked closed road #850 (aka “The Hinkle Lake Trail) into the Hinkle Lake Basin. For over a decade now I have worked to protect the Hinkle Lake Basin and the Hinkle Lake Botanical  Area from OHV abuse. The last few years have seen an increased effort by many other individuals and organizations, and now, finally, things have begun to change for the better. The turning point toward recovery has been the Forest Service’s serious commitment, over the past year, to enforcing an effective motor vehicle closure for this now over 30 year-old Forest Order Closure. This has included adequate signage and notice of the road closure, gating, tank traps, and increased enforcement and monitoring. October, 2006 OHV tracks in lake ...

Alex Hole, in the Condrey Mountain Roadless Area, is being heavily impacted by unmanaged cattle. I recently went to the eastern Siskiyou Crest with Felice Pace from the Campaign to Reform Public Land Grazing in Northern California. Felice has been monitoring grazing allotments in the Marble Mountains Wilderness Area for numerous years and is working to reform grazing practices that are violating the Clean Water Act and degrading some of the region’s most pristine high mountain springs, wetlands, and meadows. In early September we set out across the Siskiyou Crest monitoring grazing allotments on both the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest and the Klamath National Forest. What we found was appalling, yet all too routine in the mountains of the west. Cattle have been overgrazing the high mountain meadows of the Siskiyou Crest for decades. Beginning over 150 years ago sheep, then cattle began overgrazing green fescue and other upland grasses in dry clearings,...

Applegate Foothills North  This map includes the Buncom, Dakubetede, and Wellington Butte Roadless Areas. Download Map of the Applegate Foothills North Applegate Foothills South This map includes the Boaz Mountain, Collings/Kinney, Little Grayback, Elliott Ridge, Stricklin Butte, and Whisky Peak Roadless Areas. Download Map of the Applegate Foothills South Red Buttes Region This map includes the Condrey Mountain, Indian Creek, Kangaroo, and Grayback Range Roadless Areas. Download Map of the Red Buttes Region Siskiyou Crest Roadless Areas This map includes the Big Red Mountain, Glade Creek, Observation Peak, and Mudusa Flat Roadless Areas. Download Map of the Siskiyou Crest Roadless Areas Siskiyou Wilderness Area This map includes the Siskiyou Wilderness Area and the adjacent roadless areas. Download Map of the Siskiyou Wilderness Area

The view from White Mountain in the Condrey Mountain Roadless Area Listen to Luke Ruediger discuss his new book, The Siskiyou Crest: Hikes, History & Ecology in a radio interview on the Jefferson Exchange. This radio program is part of Jefferson Public Radio which covers Southern Oregon and Northern California. Listen to the Jefferson Exchange interview here

Devil’s Punchbowl in the Siskiyou Wilderness Jeffrey Pine (Pinus jeffreyi) on Cook n’ Green Butte in the Kangaroo Roadless Area 8′ DBH Western White Pine (Pinus monticola) at Steve Fork in the Red Buttes Wilderness Beargrass (Xerophyllum tenax) in the Siskiyou Fire in the Siskiyou Wilderness Serpentine ridge in the Red Buttes Wilderness The Silver Fork of Elliott Creek from the Pacific Crest Trail Echo Lake in the Red Buttes Wilderness Incense-cedar (Calocedrus decurrens) on Studhorse Creek in the Condrey Mtn. Roadless Area