October 01, 2009 11:50 AM Go to Mail Tribune Article
A group that wants to create a hiking, biking and equestrian trail between Jacksonville and Ashland has prepared a proposed map, adopted a name and will hold its first trail work party Saturday.
Members also have inspired another group to propose a similar link between Grants Pass and Jacksonville.
“We are working away at getting the exact on locations of the trails pinpointed,” said Hope Robertson, one of the founders of the Siskiyou Upland Trail Association. “There’s a map. It’s not cast in concrete. It could swing a mile or two in either direction.”
Bureau of Land Management representatives have met with the group. The agency has considerable land holdings in the area that includes Anderson Butte. where parts of the trail may run. The group would also need to obtain easements from private property owners in the area.
John Gerritsma, BLM’s field manager for the Ashland Resource Area, says agency approval for a trail would be a long process. But the agency is cooperating with both groups and will provide supervision Saturday when the Siskiyou organization holds a work party on Sterling Ditch Tail, a possible link to the proposed system.
“We don’t have any plans at this time to do that specific analysis from Ashland to Grants Pass,” said Gerritsma. “We would need to do an environmental analysis.”
— Tony Boom, for the Mail Tribune