Accessing the pacific crest trail in Ashland area (Pilot Rock, Monument: rent, college)

[Brynach]

Anyone ever use it? I've never been on the pacific crest trail, except at Mount Whitney in California. Is the access from Ashland area easy to get to? What is the trail like? Is it good for day hikes?

[mamh]

I'm currently following the PCT blogs, have a friend hiking now.
Why not try the Pacific Trail web page, there should be information in there
to help you answer your question.
good luck

[oregonwoodsmoke]

You should have extremely easy access any place that it crosses a highway. Not that there will necessarily be parking there to leave your car.

It is very well mapped. The forest service maps, showing all trails in the mountains, are good.

Check to see if you need a Forest Service parking permit in the place where you intend to leave your car.

Serious suggestion: rent one of the personal locater beacons to carry while you hike in Oregon. If you get lost or injured,there is no charge for rescue if you carry a locator beacon, and the fees for rescue if the entire Search and Rescue team has to hunt for you for days and over hundreds of miles can be astronomical.

[Deezus]

When I lived in Ashland I hiked on various parts of the PCT near Ashland a lot. I spent several summers basically hiking every day when I was in college down there.

The easiest access to the PCT from Ashland is up near Siskiyou Pass off I-5 to the south. The trail goes up to the west towards Mt. Ashland where it goes along the side of Mt. Ashland and the follows the high crest of the Siskiyous into California. Considering you can just drive up to Mt. Ashland in the summer--this is an easy and nice place to hike on the PCT along some alpine meadows. There's wildflowers and nice views along there in the summer and you can hike into the drier fall periods. If you want more exercise you can just hike up from down below Siskiyou Pass up to Mt. Ashland.

If you keep going along the ridge past Mt. Ashland the PCT stays up high getting towards the Red Buttes near the California-Oregon border before dropping way down into the Seaid Valley. Actually the part of the PCT from where it cross the Klamath River just before it head north to Oregon is the second lowest elevation on the entire PCT.

If you go to the east, the PCT goes near Pilot Rock(a nice hike/scramble to the top to of the rock if you're in shape) and the curves around the edge of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument. There's a few decent hikes in that area--though when I was there it was strange that for National Monument, there wasn't much up there. It's usually a nice quiet area for hikes, in a good way.

From there the PCT goes along Howard Prairie Lake and some of the other high lakes to the east of Ashland. It's flat and heavily forested country for the most part--it goes by the Brown Mountain lava field--but it's not the spectacular hiking landscape. Though those lakes are great to relax at. Further north it heads up to the saddle of Mt. McLoughlin and into the Sky Lakes Wilderness--a more remote series of high lakes that can be overrun by bugs in the later summer months--and after that you're almost to Crater Lake which the PCT goes up around the rim of.

[Hawk J]

Thar is a somewhat secret quarry where some folks go skinnydipping......

[Brynach]

Originally Posted by mamh

I'm currently following the PCT blogs, have a friend hiking now.
Why not try the Pacific Trail web page, there should be information in there
to help you answer your question.
good luck

Yes I have. I always check out web pages and catalogues and associations first. But it's nice to actually hear someones real time response to a question after all that.