Sturgis Fork Trail - Josephine County, Oregon
Grayback Mountain looms in front of us as we are about to conquer
another mountain trail in our explorations of Josephine County. We are
headed to the left of the picture, on Sturgis Fork Hiking Trail.
The trail begins amidst some rugged and untouched forests.
Whoever maintains these trails, is kind enough to put some log pieces in one of the soggier areas.
This is the famous Sucker Creek, not far from where it begins. This
is some of the richest, gold-producing area in Oregon, and not far from
here was where a 17+ pound gold nugget was found. Seems kind of
strange calling 17 pounds of gold a nugget!
Climbing to one cross-roads, we have options, but we certainly can't do both in one day, so we chose the right.
As we approach the summit, the ground becomes more rugged, with less under-brush and larger boulders.
We cross through some magnificent, but difficult mountain meadows.
These are all the places we're headed for, except when I saw the
"Oregon Caves Scenic Route" sign, I thought someone with the county was
just being very humorous. I did not realize, until we go home, and
started looking at the map, and tracing our route, that this was no
joke. We were only a few miles from Oregon Caves National Monument. It
seemed crazy to me, because we have hiked so much of this area, and it
is so vast, that to be so close to the Oregon Caves was amazing.
Looking back at our visit to the Oregon Caves National Monument, we had
planned in the future to return and hike the trails that they
advertise. One of those trails would have ended up right where we now
stand.
We have completed our circuitous route in our long curve to the
left, and are now going back to our right, headed toward Grayback
Mountain. The trees in the far background mark the next leg of our
journey. Everywhere, the mountain meadows are ablaze with so much color
and so many flowers, that it is hard to believe this is the end of
Summer, and soon, this mountain will be covered with snow.
Everywhere there were butterflies, flitting around like children on a playground.
At last, we have reached our goal, Sturgis Fork, and Grayback Mountain looms before us.
These next couple of photos show the vegetation to be matted down.
The cause of this, was a herd of deer who bedded down here the night
before.
Can't you just see a large buck laying down in this bed, where he
can watch the trail in both directions and not be seen until you're
almost on him. It is a lot more comfortable than it looks.
Again, another meadow full of wild flowers.
I thought this stump was quite interesting. There are a lot of them
in evidence in the mountains, but in this one you can actually see some
of the feeder lines that bring water from the roots to the upper part
of the tree.
There were millions of bees throughout these meadows, busily
pollinating millions of flowers, seemingly unaware that the season is
almost over.
I just had to put this bone on the stump for the photo. We found it
near a cave a few yards away, and it impressed me because it seems to
be a thigh bone of a very large deer or elk, and it has marks of large
teeth, having gnawed on it.
These are some of the caves that are near where we found the bone,
and I imagine that a bear had either made the kill, or happened along,
and at least taken part of the meat as its' reward, because cougar or
coyote teeth are not large enough to make the gashes that are visible
all over the bone.
There are several caves that would make great places for a bear to hibernate.
Now this is something that I know you have been waiting to see for a
long time, but nobody ever blogs about "bear scat," so I had to do it!
The last time I saw fresh bear scat was halfway around Jenny Lake in
the Grand Tetons, and it was from a grizzly, and it was steaming, and
the large paw prints were just barely starting to fill with moisture.
There I was four and a half miles from my vehicle, and the reports had
just come in that morning about two hikers being mauled by a grizzly in
Yellowstone Park just up the road. I made it back to my vehicle in what
may have been a FOUR-MILE MINUTE! This time it was not very alarming,
because this was left by a black bear.
There are signs everywhere around here, where the bears have ripped apart dead trees to get at the insects.
Winding our way back down the Sturgis Fork Hiking Trail.
More bear sign.
Talk about a "bump on a log!"
It may not look high from this angle, but the log lay across a
beginnings of Sucker Creek, and I was about eighty feet above it, and it
sure felt a lot higher than that!
The gap between the two mountains is where we ended up today. Our
next trip into this area will be to climb to the summit of Grayback
Mountain from the other side, and end up on the peak that you see on the
right. This is the highest point in Josephine County, and we have been
close to the summit on our previous Grayback trip, but we were in
search of a historic cabin at the time, and ran out of daylight. They
say that the Pacific Ocean and Mount Shasta are clearly visible from the
summit, so we're looking forward to that trip.
This tree was actually twelve feet in diameter! There were some real monsters in this country at one time.
Our ferocious guard dogs were certainly glad to get back from this
strenuous hike. They look kind of tired, but yes, they are miniature
schnauzers.
