We’ve had lots of foggy mornings lately. I grabbed my camera to take the above picture not so much for the fog as to get the bright oranges and reds on the Japanese Maple tree in the bottom of the picture. Unfortunately, if I focused on the leaves and had them show up in true color in the picture the sky (and everything else) would turn white and you couldn’t see the fog or mountain tops. It was either colorful leaves or sky/mountains/fog. I couldn’t get both in a single picture even though that is what my natural eyes were seeing. Oh well, it’s still a decent photograph anyway.

Posted on December 1st, 2008 under nature. Tags: fog, home, mountains, sunrise, valley. Comments: 2

Today’s picture goes along with yesterday’s. It was taken a couple of months after yesterday’s photo in 2004. My kids and I were hiking on Bull Gap Trail. In the background (upper left) you can see Wagner Butte.

Bull Gap is a trail that leads you right up to the ski lodge on Mt. Ashland. I’ve hiked it a couple of times and ridden my bike down it a half dozen or so times. If you want to bike down it you should ride your bike up the main road to the lodge or you can ride up some fire roads to get there. If you start from Ashland you’ll be in for a long day. If you don’t have the time you can drive a car up to four corners and ride up from there.

Both Bull Gap and Wagner Butte are in the Siskiyou Mountains. From both you can view the Cascade Mountain Range.

Posted on November 28th, 2008 under nature, only in ashland, people, places. Tags: biking, hike, mountains, people, trees. Comments Off on Bull Gap Trail

I’ve been showing some pictures of Mexico on my other blog this week. Most are of Ashland’s sister city, Guanajuato. By searching for those pictures, I’ve discovered some others of Southern Oregon like the last two days’ photos.

Today’s picture is of a hike I took with my kids several years ago in May. Snow was still on some of the local mountains even though everything had turned green. The hike was to Wagner Butte, a place that can be seen from Ashland. We didn’t make it all the way there, but I went back a month later without my kids to complete the trip. (Wagner Butte Hike is over 10 miles round trip with an elevation gain of 2,200 feet.) This photograph was taken after just a mile (which is actually the steepest part of the whole hike).

We would have hit snow long before we reached Wagner Butte anyway so the intent on that day wasn’t to do the whole thing. To get to the trailhead you go through Talent, the town just north of Ashland. Best time to do it is late spring or summer as there can be tons of wildflowers.

Posted on November 27th, 2008 under nature, places. Tags: hike, mountains, snow, trees, wagner butte. Comments: 3

I took this picture with a cruddy little camera out an airplane window a few years back at about 7 a.m. I was on my way to Mexico. Ashland is right below me. I had just taken off from the Medford airport and was heading south. The tracks my flight were making can be seen most mornings in Ashland. The higher mountain sticking through the clouds is Mt. McLaughlin, a mountain I climbed the prior fall.

Posted on November 25th, 2008 under nature, places. Tags: clouds, mountains, Mt. McLaughlin, skywatch, sunrise. Comments: 5

A view from Ashland Middle School… This is the track with Grizzly Peak in the background. I took this picture on the way in to see a volleyball game. On the way out I took basically the same shot. The other photograph looks very different, however, as the sun was setting, the clouds were mostly gone, and the lighting and colors were all changed. I’ll post that picture sometime in the future.

Posted on November 24th, 2008 under places. Tags: ashland middle school, clouds, grizzly peak, mountains, skywatch. Comments: 1

I woke up and looked out my window last week to the above view. After snapping this picture I hopped in the shower. When I got out of the shower the fog had risen another few hundred feet and nothing could be seen, but fog, until several hours later.

Posted on November 17th, 2008 under nature. Tags: clouds, fog, home, mountains, nature, skywatch, sunrise, valley. Comments: 3

Posted on November 7th, 2008 under nature, only in ashland. Tags: autumn, clouds, grizzly peak, home, mountains, trees. Comments: 5

After a number of warm days in a row, this was the sunrise on the last of those warm days, about 24 hours before the rain hit and the temperatures turned much colder.

Posted on November 5th, 2008 under nature. Tags: clouds, home, mountains, skywatch, sunrise, trees. Comments: 4

A couple weeks ago we had a few cold days which resulted in a bit of snow on the nearby peaks. If the trees on the top of Grizzly Peak, pictured above, look a bit strange to you it is because of a fire that charred them six years ago. The contrast of the black and white is kind of cool. In spring, with late snow dustings like the above you can see a nice mixture of black, white, green (from grass), yellow, and purple (from wild flowers).

I’ll have to post some pictures of the valley from up on Grizzly Peak from prior hikes I have taken one of these days. It’s a great hike, just not this time of year as the back road is in the shade and likely covered in snow even if the front side looks dry.

Posted on October 23rd, 2008 under nature. Tags: grizzly peak, mountains, snow, trees. Comments: 1