Six eager hikers from Ashland and Medford joined up to hike the Sterling Mine Ditch Trail. We enjoyed the one dry day in the week.

Although planned for an ‘out and back’ trek, we decided to return via a trail down to the Armstrong trailhead, crossing the road, to climb back up to meet the Sterling Mine Ditch trail. We covered 5.8 miles with a 433’ elevation change.

The forest is lovely and dense with many of our region’s species. We marveled at the many beautiful colors of the Madrone trunks after annual shedding of their bark. The colors on these smooth trunks were accentuated with the moisture, drawing from one hiker an urge to pet them. In the ground cover, we saw Oregon grape, Sword ferns, Jelly fungus, Wolf lichen, and encountered a little white Slender Toothwort.

Kay shared information about the work of the Siskiyou Upland Trails Association (SUTA). We are grateful to its volunteers for maintaining and improving these and many other trails. More about SUTA and trail maps is at: www.sutaoregon.org
Elizabeth and Kay

Hike Leader: Kay

Photos By: Kay