Wednesday, December 27, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
31
Trail advocates assess damage from massive Oregon wildfire
By Shaun Hall
Grants Pass Daily Courier
SELMA (AP) — With
Angela Panter setting a com-
fortable place, the hikers
trekked through areas burned
15 years ago in the mammoth
Biscuit Fire and burned,
again, last summer in the
huge Chetco Bar Fire.
Panter is president of the
Siskiyou Mountain Club,
which is more than a group
of hiking enthusiasts. Club
members work to build and
maintain the trails they use
in the region’s wilderness
areas.
The newly charred land-
scape near Babyfoot Lake, on
the edge of the Kalmiopsis
Wilderness about 10 miles
southwest of Selma, will be
the target of the club’s resto-
ration efforts beginning this
spring. That work will be on
top of the club’s usual trail
clearing and maintenance
work.
In the seven years or so of
the club’s existence, nearly
120 miles of trails have been
cleared by club volunteers,
paid interns and staffers. The
nonprofit organization has
an Ashland address but has
members from Josephine
County.
Panter says club founder
Gabriel Howe several years
ago decided to do some-
thing about the overgrown
trails he and his wife found
in the wilderness areas of
Southwest Oregon and north-
ern California.
“I think they realized the
wilderness areas weren’t
being taken care of,” said
Panter, who joined the club
a few years ago after volun-
teering one day to help the
group clear brush.
The moderately difficult
trek of about 5 miles offered
vistas stretching from moun-
tains near the coast to jagged
peaks south and east of Cave
Junction. Babyfoot Lake was
slightly frozen over. The lake
is an easy hike of a bit more
than a mile from the trail-
head, but Panter extended
the recent hike beyond
that.
The trail she took pro-
vided a few edge-of-the-
world experiences beside
steep dropoffs, one difficult
descent fit for a billy goat
and a bonus off-trail bush-
whacking side trip. Along
the way, there were downed
trees to clamber over, several
richly vegetated streamlets to
step across and some crunchy
snow to walk on.
Chris Friend, a retired
state forestry worker from
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Wilderville, said the fires
burned away trees that nor-
mally would have blocked
views.
“Expansive views,” he
said.
The Chetco Fire burned
a lot of brush that had been
coming back after the Biscuit
Fire. That brush included
a lot of manzanita bushes,
known for their distinctive
reddish branches.
Atop one burned-over
ridge, Dave Eye, a case man-
ager for disabled persons,
found a tiny lone plant rising
up out of the blackened rocky
soil. He and Panter celebrated
by taking pictures of it.
It was the cycle of life on
display. Fire is both destruc-
tive and creative.
It’s sad to see it
like this, but it
needs to happen.
— Angela Panter
“It’s sad to see it like
this, but it needs to happen,”
Panter said.
“Ghostly,” someone said,
describing the scene.
“Ghostly’s a pretty good
word,” Panter replied. “It’s
like bittersweet, to see it
before and after.”
She looked around.
“These plants worked so
hard to get where they got.”
Trekking down off the
ridge, the hikers used a
burned-over trail that already
was eroding from runoff.
It had created a channel
down the middle of the trail.
Brennan said it pointed to the
need for early fire restora-
tion work. “Water bars” can
be built to divert runoff away
from trails.
Once erosion starts, Panter
said, “it just feeds on itself.
“It gets bigger and
bigger.”
At one point, Eye talked
about trail work that involves
the use of handheld saws.
Chain saws and machinery
typically are not allowed in
wilderness areas.
A saw, Eye said, “it
sings.”
“A chain saw doesn’t
sing.”
Mountain bikes aren’t
allowed in wilderness areas
either, although a bill was
recently passed by the U.S.
House of Representatives to
allow them.
Dave Brennan, a member
of the club who works with
Panter at outdoor outfitter
REI in Medford, said he’s
already been in touch with
Rep. Greg Walden about the
issue. Bike tires can damage
trails.
“I’m pretty concerned
with it,” Brennan said.
Ghostly’s a pretty
good word. It’s like
bittersweet, to see it
before and after. These
plants worked so hard to
get where they got.
— Angela Panter
Brennan and Panter
hauled out some trash they
found during the hike. Up
where the van was parked,
they bagged a couple diapers
left in a fire ring built in the
middle of the gravel lot, then
dismantled the ring by toss-
ing aside rocks and shoveling
out ash. Panter dropped the
ash near bushes, as a nutrient.
Panter wondered why
someone would make the
trek all the way up there only
to trash it. She talked about
coming back and cleaning up
around the lake.
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