{"id":2045,"date":"2017-07-09T19:43:11","date_gmt":"2017-07-09T19:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/old.cherylhill.net\/blog\/?p=2045"},"modified":"2017-07-20T20:28:43","modified_gmt":"2017-07-20T20:28:43","slug":"sturgis-fork-and-boundary-trails","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/2017\/07\/09\/sturgis-fork-and-boundary-trails\/","title":{"rendered":"Sturgis Fork and Boundary Trails"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the 4th of July we did one last hike before driving home from southern Oregon. In William Sullivan’s book, he recommends a nice 4.8-mile round-trip hike up the Sturgis Fork Trail, then north on the Boundary Trail to an unnamed high point at 6,420′. But, as you will see, we were stymied by a meadow:<\/p>\n

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We broke camp and drove south past Applegate Lake where we stopped to enjoy a nice view that included the Red Buttes:<\/p>\n

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The last half mile of road to the trailhead is horrible. It’s very rough and very rocky. We made it okay in the Outback, but I don’t see how a low clearance car could ever make it up. I was surprised to see a horse corral at the trailhead. I can’t imagine how one would get a horse trailer up here.<\/p>\n

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Someone has shot up this sign all to hell. What the….? Why….? \ud83d\ude21<\/p>\n

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It was a quick uneventful 0.7mi hike up the Sturgis Fork Trail. There was no sign at its junction with the Boundary Trail. Nor was there a sign a quarter mile further along in this little meadow, where apparently the Mt. Elijah trail (#1206) heads off to the left. We did not see any trail at all heading off that way.<\/p>\n

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Then we came to this huge sprawling meadow. Unfortunately the trail totally vanished at this point.<\/p>\n

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The GPS said the trail went up a bit, then traversed straight across, so that’s what we tried. We ended up on something that looked like it may have been a trail once. But the vegetation was thick, and it was hard to tell.<\/p>\n

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We ended up in some brush and some trees. We crossed a gully with a stream. No pictures were taken during this part of the adventure. According to the GPS we were on track, but there was absolutely no sign of trail here. Then we hit this:<\/p>\n

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With a thick wall of brush in our way, we gave up. It wasn’t worth it. We went back to the meadow, found some shade from a tree, and sat enjoying the view:<\/p>\n

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It was pleasant in the meadow, with birds and bees and butterflies, so it was not a bad consolation prize.<\/p>\n

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We also enjoyed these super cool clouds:<\/p>\n

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Then we headed back:<\/p>\n

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I later learned from a fellow hiker online\u00a0that the trail on the topo map is incorrect and that the actual trail is a bit further down the slope from where we were. You can see his map here<\/a>. He also said that even if you’re on the right path, it’s still hard to follow this time of year when the vegetation is obscuring the trail.<\/p>\n

I did a track on the way back, starting from our lunch spot. You can kind of see on the satellite view the trail below us.<\/p>\n

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When I first learned about the Boundary Trail on this trip I thought it would make a cool backpacking route. But now I’m not so sure. It’s certainly scenic, but signage and maintenance seem sporadic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the 4th of July we did one last hike before driving home from southern Oregon. In William Sullivan’s book,<\/p>\n

Continue readingSturgis Fork and Boundary Trails<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[159,186],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2045"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2045"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2050,"href":"https:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2045\/revisions\/2050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}