| Siskiyou Mountain Club
Long live the backwoods trails Press Release |
Contact: Gabriel Howe, Executive Director
541-708-2056 gabe@siskiyoumountainclub.org |
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Siskiyou Mountain Club opens 30-mile National Recreation Trail for first time since 2002 Biscuit Fire, but “nobody’s going to hold your hand”
12 JUNE 2022 | KALMIOPSIS WILDERNESS, OR. — Siskiyou Mountain Club Wilderness Corps have finished work on the 30-mile Illinois River National Recreation Trail, making it passable for the first time since 2002 when the 500,000-acre Biscuit Fire burned through the area. In its wake, fire-killed logs fell into impassable stacks trail workers call “jackstraws.” Brush exploded into the trail prism, and long sections of trail eroded away.
“It was like whack-a-mole,” says the Club’s executive director Gabriel Howe. “You’d clear one section, and 10 or 15 miles down the trail, another trail section would fill in.” His crews have worked portions of the trail since 2014. The 2017 Chetco Bar and 2018 Klondike Fires didn’t do them any favors.
“The brush is just exploding now,” says Howe. “And it’s getting me into trouble.”
April 25, he responded to an email from Grants Pass resident Heidi Morris inquiring about conditions of the trail. Morris is a donor and loyal volunteer, and Howe’s crews had been working on the trail’s western terminus to Silver Creek. “We had cleared the section from Bald Mountain to there in 2019,” says Howe. “I thought after just three seasons, it should be fine.”
So he encouraged Morris to go on the hike, adding that to his knowledge the trail should be in decent shape, other than some landslides near Silver Creek his crews hadn’t got to yet. About six weeks later, the Morrises would find out Howe had given them very bad advice.
June 16, the couple set out to hike the route east-to-west, and found conditions fine until they got to Bald Mountain, where they took a wrong turn up a user trail to the peak. They got back on course, but after a few miles of heading west, the trail completely disappeared, says Ms. Morris.
“There were points where there was no sign of a trail whatsoever. It was gone.” Ms. Morris says at points they were cursing Howe for the bad advice, but “we blessed you as well at many points,” she added during a phone call with Howe. “When we got to Silver Creek,” where the Club had worked through, “we were very happy.”
“I forgive you,” Ms. Morris said to Howe after learning the section she and her husband encountered has since been opened up. One of the Club’s Wilderness Corps crews finished work on the overgrown section west of Bald Mountain about a week after the Morrises had to push through it.
Howe adds that when hiking into the region’s wilderness areas, trail users should expect a lack of signage and be prepared for some navigation. “This isn’t the Pacific Crest Trail and it’s not for everyone. This is wild country and nobody’s going to hold your hand. Expect some challenges.”
That’s why the couple went, says Ms. Morris. “We didn’t see another human. Zero other people from trailhead to trailhead. It was a new experience for us and we were proud of ourselves that we succeeded.”
The 30-mile National Recreation Trail connects the communities of Selma and Agness, OR. It comes with a challenging elevation profile, traversing the northern recesses of the 180,000-acre Kalmiopsis Wilderness, known for its unforgiving country. Forest Service maps of the area are hard to come by, says Howe, 38, and advises backcountry users not to rely on digital products, especially social platforms: “I see advice worse than my own on there.”
The Club has a free high-resolution topographic map available for download from their website at siskiyoumountainclub.org/illinoisrivertrail. Howe says the trail will eventually stabilize. “The trail prism will get shaded out. Until the next fire.”
Support for the project came from the REI Medford, and the Oregon Recreational Trails Program. ###
