With Spring now upon us, our attention is starting to shift to as yet unexplored trails (for us) in the Cascades and elsewhere. But there was one bit of unfinished business in the Applegate - USFS Trail 908. This trail is no longer listed on the Rogue River National Forest website but is shown on various topo maps including the latest (2014) USFS Carberry Creek quad (but it's not on the Rogue River National Forest large scale map). I finally found a description of it in Ruediger's The Siskiyou Crest where he calls it the "Osier Creek Trail" and indicates that it's still there and can be followed. So, in the spirit of adventure and discovery, I set off to find it (the Loved One bowed out on this one given that it might involve crashing through sharp brush festooned with poison oak - how right she was!). The 908 starts at FR 1030 and climbs the E ridge of Steve Peak to the Mountain View Mine. The 908 seems to have been built to service the lookout on Steve Peak which was first built in 1919 and survived until 1968.
The mine was first prospected in 1911 but a road was not built to it until the 1930s or 40s - this road seems to have obliterated any part of the 908 that actually went to the LO site. The mine did produce some gold but costs of production probably outweighed its yield and it seems to have been abandoned sometime in the 1960s. It's not clear when the USFS finally gave up on the 908 but its no longer in their inventory and obviously not maintained (not even by volunteers like some of the other old trails in this area). Needless to say, there's no sign at the TH and I had to find the start of the 908 by looking for a faint depression leaving FR 1030. Once I did that, the trail was fairly easy to follow, with really good sections,
sections with blowdown that could be scrambled through,
and sections requiring major detours followed by a hunt for the trail on the other side.
While Ruediger speaks glowingly on this trail, he fails to mention the consequences of its lack of maintenance or the fact that there is a lot of poison oak in some sections. After about 3 mi of dodging and weaving through the brush and poison oak, I popped out on the old mine road - whose openness was a welcome relief from the brush on the 908.
This road is open enough to provide the only view on this trail - of snow-covered Wagner Butte.
About 0.5 mi up the road, I came to the first shaft,
and, after passing through the results of our latest snow storm,
the site of the main shaft, which had collapsed (I later found out) sometime in the 1960s.
I've explored a lot of old mines so I guess I was expecting some interesting old equipment or buildings or junk - like the cool stuff Don always finds. But there was only a rusty folding chair.
Somewhat deflated, I sat on the chair for lunch, then headed back the way I'd come. A short hike (7.4 mi, 2400' EG) that allowed me to scratch the itch I had about Trail 908. Soon I will know if all that crawling through brush hasn't created an itch of a different sort.
The solid yellow track is the 908 trail / road system; the dotted red track is the old mine service road (which can no longer be followed from the mine to FR 1020).
