Public Reception Gathering for Siskiyou Crest Trek Hikers at Grouse Gap

Join us for a reception gathering and campout on the Siskiyou Crest to celebrate the campaign for a Siskiyou Crest National Monument! Our crew of hikers and filmmakers will be returning on foot from a 90-mile hiking expedition transecting the proposed national monument from the Oregon Caves National Monument to Grouse Gap.

The shelter is located just a few miles behind Mt Ashland just below Forest Service Road 20.

Read the project description for the Trek below:

This August scientific and conservation leaders convened by the Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center will embark on a 90 mile hiking expedition to transect the proposed Siskiyou Crest National Monument along the rugged border of Oregon and California. We will use multimedia coverage and an interactive, online map to provide the public with an ecological snapshot of what we discover. We will be partnering with regional media outlets to broadcast images, interviews and ecological observations about this remote, little known area right in our backyard. We will provide daily updates that contain background facts and educational information about the peaks, botanical areas and trails we pass through.

The Siskiyou Crest is a world class landscape that is home to perhaps the greatest diversity of plant species on the North American continent. It is full of a wondrous array of species found nowhere else on earth (think Siskiyou Mountain salamander and Baker's Cypress!), yet its narrow ridges and steep canyons remain largely unknown to those besides the adventurous few who have been there themselves. This unusual mountain system runs in a rare east/west orientation, and acts as the only high-quality habitat corridor connecting the Coast Ranges of Oregon and California to the Cascade and Sierra Mountains. This "Land Bridge" is like the crossbar of a giant "H" on the western edge of the continent, offering a travel conduit for elusive mammals like wolverine and Pacific fisher.

We will be joined by specialists in the fields of climate science, botany, mammalogy and conservation biology who will offer their expertise in documenting the myriad reasons this area is proposed for permanent protection. There will be support staff staying in town to provide members of the media with background information about the proposed monument and the special features we will be highlighting during our trek. There will also be opportunities for journalists to join us by car for a day hike, or to meet up with us at the Grouse Gap shelter behind Mount Ashland on the Siskiyou Crest for a press conference and public reception potluck the night of the Perseid meteor shower, August 12th.

We will start our journey at the Oregon Caves National Monument to coincide with the 100th anniversary celebration of the monument and the current bill in congress that will result in a tenfold expansion of the monuments borders. Our crew will hike up to Bigelow Lakes and into the Red Buttes Wilderness where we will ascend to the Siskiyou Crest itself. Our route will weave in and out of Oregon and California, joining the Pacific Crest Trail and following it over 60 miles as it bisects the boundary of the proposed national monument.

Along the way we will be photo-documenting the area under consideration for protection, as well as collecting tapes from motion detector cameras placed in strategic locations beforehand by conservation biology graduate students in an attempt to document the presence of rare and reclusive mammals rarely seen by humans.

Our interactive, online map will be updated as we progress along our journey allowing the public to follow in our footsteps and see what we see. The map will remain up as a virtual tour of the crest once the transect is completed.

This is a new and exciting campaign already creating a buzz across our geographic region, and we are ready to work with a media partner to bring national exposure to the proposal for a Siskiyou Crest National Monument.

For more information or to ask any questions, please contact Laurel Sutherlin at laurel@kswild.org or call the KS Wild office at (541)488-5789.