Rough and Ready Wayside a special place of rare plants (Valley View)

By Shaun Hall of the Daily Courier                                           
April 20, 2010

 CAVE JUNCTION -- Rose Kilpatrick walks on rocks. That's because she doesn't want to walk on wildflowers.

Not just because they’re pretty. But, because some are rare, endangered or on a “watch list.”

On Sunday, Kilpatrick was out walking on rocks at the Rough and Ready Botanical Wayside, about five miles south of Cave Junction. About 50 visitors went with her as part of a wildflower tour.

“Botanical” and “wayside” seem to be somewhat misfit names for the area. The vegetation is not lush, as one might expect at a botanical area. And wayside is misleading, because adjacent federal lands mean the area is several square miles of protected land, not just a mere enclave along the Redwood Highway.

The area is adjacent to Rough and Ready Creek, just south of the Illinois Valley Airport, in an area that looks somewhat desert-like and rocky, but is rich in color, texture and diversity of plant life.

“This is my life,” said Kilpatrick, a botanist with an interest in the hundreds of acres that make up the wayside and adjoining federally protected habitat.

“A lovely place,” is how another visitor and tour assistant, Maelagh Baker, put it.

Baker and Kilpatrick and Suzanne Vautier and Tim Leyba were among the leaders of the tour. The other visitors along for the trip included people passionate about plants and flowers, as well as novices out for a day hike along mostly flat terrain, much of it on a handicapped-accessible patch.

Rough and Ready Creek flows heavy this time of year through the area. By late summer, it will be dry. The soils underfoot are sandy, gritty and rocky, although roads and trails make hiking easy.

Roger Brandt was along for the walk. He explained how the upper reaches of the creek have been suggested for Wild and Scenic River designation. Brandt touts the wayside in on online posting www.highway199.org.

About a decade ago, a nickel mining operation was proposed in the drainage, but was shelved after the U.S. Forest Service said helicopters would be needed. With the wayside just south of the airport, occasional aircraft fly low overhead. An economic venture at the airport also spawned a threat to the wayside’s plants: An experiment with a plant called alyssum has led to the plant spreading to adjacent areas.

“They’ve introduced a non-native plant that prefers serpentine soils ... that’s endangering the rare plants,” Vautier said.

What is at the wayside right now is a parking area, a gazebo with a table and, at the end of a 10 minute walk, another table overlooking the wide whitewater of Rough and Ready Creek. Other trails lead upstream.

The lower reaches of the drainage are where the wayside sits, on a wide alluvial fan of creek deposits that stretches from Cave Junction to O'Brien. The wayside landscape is dominated by low manzanita brush and wildflowers in abundance through May or beyond.

Tree growth is stunted, hike leaders said, because the serpentine soils are nutrient-poor. Many of the plants are slow-growing.

Kilpatrick describe one such pine: “It’s gnarled, stunted, curled. It looks like Godzilla came through here and stepped on it.”

Vautier and Leyba helped organize the outing, under the auspices of the Cultural & Ecological Enhancement Network. The Native Plant society was a co-sponsor of the event.

“We use outreach, education and collaboration ... to develop stewardship and watershed restoration,” Vautier said.

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Reach reporter Shaun Hall at 541-474-3813 or shall@thedailycourier.com