A scene from KS Wild's hike of the Siskiyou Crest (photo from KS Wild).
A scene from KS Wild's hike of the Siskiyou Crest (photo from KS Wild).
A scene from KS Wild's hike of the Siskiyou Crest (photo from KS Wild).
A crew led by the Klamath-Siskiyou
Wildlands Center
is continuing their trek from the Oregon
Caves to Mt.
Ashland to promote the proposed Siskiyou Crest National Monument.
Below is a dispatch the group sent out over the weekend:
This dispatch is sent from Cook and
Green Pass, one of the nation’s most botanically diverse areas, overlooking the
vast Kangaroo Roadless Area, an unprotected wild land contiguous to the Red
Buttes Wilderness. This stunning landscape is filled with expanses of old
growth forests, cool clean streams and sweeping views in all directions. Many
rare species of plants live here and nowhere else in the world, as well as
spotted owls, Pacific fisher and countless other creatures.
“The Siskiyou Crest sits at the
crossroads of a whole different bunch of ecosystems, so there are species from
the Cascades, the Coast Ranges, the Great Basin, and the California
floristic province,” said Laurel Sutherlin, trip leader and Grassroots
Organizer for the Klamath-Siskiyou
Wildlands Center
(KS Wild). KS Wild is leading a campaign to protect this area as a National
Monument.
The crew’s trip has thus far taken
them through the Bigelow Lakes Botanical Area, over the Boundary Trail, and
into the Kangaroo IRA and Red Buttes Wilderness. In addition to muscle-burning
climbs and scenic splendor, lightning, hail, and a mid-summer cold front have
been part of the experience. Shortly before camping at Cook and Green last
night, the crew transitioned onto the Pacific Crest Trail, for the section of
the PCT that runs east-west along the Crest until linking up with the Cascades.
“I’ve never seen anything like this
before in my life. The Crest has a beauty that is unrivaled in the west,” said
Duane Martinez, through-hiker and Ashland
resident.
Much of the southwest corner of the
proposed Siskiyou Crest National Monument
is recognized as the ancestral homeland of the Karuk Tribe of the Mid-Klamath River. The Karuk are a federally
recognized Tribe, but have no deeded reservation land. The Karuk government has
a well-developed Department of Natural Resources and has articulated a vision
of land management and restoration coincides largely with KS Wild’s
conservation goals. This campaign embraces a nearly unprecedented approach that
seeks to establish a special designation within the Monument that would
increase the Tribe’s management authority in their homeland.
For more information on the proposed monument, see my
previous blog post and KS Wild’s website dedicated to the monument proposal.
Today’s Siskiyou Daily News has an interesting article about
the Siskiyou County board of supervisors’ opposition
to the monument.
For more opposition to the monument, see the comments responding
to a Mail Tribune article about the hike. The Tidings also ran the story on the hike, but it hasn’t
yet received any comments in the online forums.
See two more KS Wild videos about the hike below:
