Having spend the fall, winter, and early spring hiking Arizona prominence peaks upon our return to Oregon in the late spring I was in a frame of mind to focus on hiking Oregon prominence peaks. A large number of such peaks I had not yet visited lie in Southwest Oregon in the Siskiyou Mountains and in the adjoining Southern Oregon Coast Range and Western Cascade Mountains. I decided to make my first peak bagging trip to the Siskiyou Mountains. I assembled a list of peaks, gathered maps and trip reports, and recorded key GPS waypoints to help me navigate the numerous forest roads accessing these peaks.
Yellowleaf Iris
Olson Mountain
On May 17 I drove to and hiked Olson Mountain in the Western Cascades northeast of Medford. This peak has 1860 feet of prominence, the 94th most prominent peak in Oregon. The first challenge was to navigate the forest roads to drive to near the summit. I had viewed satellite images of the forest roads to help sketch out a possible route and marked this route with waypoints and on my topo maps of the area. This research proved to be very helpful and I was able to find my intended “trailhead”. From there I hiked up a short jeep trail, then wandered about the brushy and indistinct terrain of the summit to identify what seemed to be the highest point on the mountain. I finally satisfied myself that I had found it and retraced my route back to my Jeep.
