Saturday, September 25, 2010

My Trip to Mount Ashland: Operation Excelsior!


The mountain itself stands 7,500 feet high. It is the biggest mountain between the smaller coast ranges its West and the mighty Cascade Range east of the Rouge Valley.

This week I took a daytime trip, camera in hand, up the winding roads of Mount Ashland, to capture some of nature and the lovely vistas here in this part of the Pacific Northwest.

44 comments:

  1. What beautiful shots of some gorgeous scenery! These are so pretty, Doug. Thanks for sharing.

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  2. Glad you enjoyed them Jacquie. It was a fun little trip.

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  3. A much nicer set of pictures than the previous ones Doug.

    Looks like a grand day out.

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  4. I'll second that, Jim!

    Yes, quite grand: warm but not hot weather, some sunshine, fresh air, exercise time spent in natural surroundings, et al, does improve one's outlook.

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  5. The photo gives a good impression of the lie of the land and the City within it. Great autumnal colours here Doug and a panoramic scene and a lovely vista stretching out ahead.

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  6. I love the cloud drifting in from the left over a wild lanscape

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  7. Good that the skiers have returned in hgh numbers and have contributed to the local economy Doug

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  8. Great that the ski lifts run on renewable energy Doug creating much less pressure on the local environment.....encouraging developments I think

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  9. They are amazing trees, they look ancient, prehistoric even...I'm sure their roots must be from before recorded history in the area aren't they?

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  10. Looks like the wild west Doug, obviously because it is...the lupines must be impressive, they are some of my favourite flowers

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  11. Away from it all, how nice that is Doug!

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  12. Great photo Doug, that a a truly majestic peak, it is amazing that it is so far away and put into perspective here by the smaller summit in the foreground...this really is an excellent image Doug.

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  13. What a sculptural outcrop, those twin columns of rock are amazing, makes you wonder whose eyes have beheld these rocky shapes before, prehistory is THE great leveller I think Doug.....I love this wild and to me slightly threatening environment...fantastic!

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  14. This is a wonderful photo, the cloud below sitting in the valley, the lichen covered stump in the foreground and the peak in the far distance beyond the silhouetted pines.....it is the stuff that sagas are made of I think Doug

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  15. They get everywhere, there was a very similar one in garden a few hours ago, the world belongs to squirrels

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  16. Lovely view with the local flora in the foreground, can almost taste the freshness of the mountain air here Doug

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  17. There is some otherworldly about this image, it looks like a scene from 2001 Space Odyssey...am I mistaken or is that a dollar sign carved in the primeval rock? Something about this picture is pure Dr Who I think.

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  18. We have one of those on our local hill too....here we are told it is something to do with air traffic control, but really I suspect they are beacons to communicate with the Mother Ship.... erected by some alien species that wear silver clothes and have a greenish complexion.....like I said before 2001 Space Odyssey, glad you weren't abducted Doug!

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  19. Great piece of history of Oregon and as well a very nice caption.

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  20. At first I thought that might be a radar site but no it's too small...

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  21. A very nice trip you took there and very interesting to read as well as look at as well. Thanks for this share Doug.

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  22. Yes, it is a nice area, AA. A bit more majestic in Winter with the snows on the hills but autumn is my favorite time here.

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  23. Me too. I picked a good day for wispy and scenic clouds. Those trails around the summit are for the ski runs.

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  24. Yes, although its not a major ski area, it does offer lighting for night skiing runs and is featured on a lot of travel sites on the Internet.

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  25. I was pleased to see this. Ashland itself is one of the "greener" areas of southern Oregon politically.

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  26. Black bears are reported near here from time to time. They are generally not partial to human habitat, luckily, although sometimes there have been problems when people leave food or trash around.

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  27. Exactly AA. The Pacific Ponderosa was first identified by whites in the 1820's by a pioneer botanist named David Douglas, whose name graces another slimmer giant of the forests, The Douglas Fir.

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  28. It does have "head'em off at the pass" look to it now that you mention this, AA. I need to get back up here in May or June next year to get the lupines and their neighbors in bloom.

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  29. Yes, the quiet at this part of the sojourn was very nice, as was the vista. Not just wind and silence, of course--there's almost always a plane noise or something off in the distance.

    I only saw a nice young family of four and a couple--briefly--about the lower summit area so I mostly had that feeling of happy solitude .

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  30. Thanks AA. Many times I've driven past Mt. Shasta along the Interstate in far northern California and I can't take a usable picture of the place because it is surrounded by heavy clouds. This was a break for me to get this angle on a clear day.
    The 19th century Scotland-born "Poet of the Sierras", Jaoqiun Miller (1837-1913) said of this mountain in 1873, "Lonely as God, and white as a winter moon, Mount Shasta starts up sudden and solitary from the heart of the great black forests of...California." Some of the black forests aren't there anymore but this volcanic mountain--sacred to both Native Americans and "New Age" spiritual peoples--remains like a sentinel of raw nature most humankind can only gape at.

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  31. "Wild and slightly threatening" is an excellent summation of the area!

    . You're right, AA, generations of hunters thousands of years before Europeans came through probably stopped at this and other near-by sites. Our modern plastic world will be stuffed in a landfill and this will still be standing.

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  32. At this point I was realizing I wasn't in such good shape after all. Then I thought of Lewis and Clark--they didn't turn back, and grizzly bears were thick as dogs in a kennel in the Great West in their day!

    Would Kit Carson turn back?

    Would Edward Mallory?

    And besides, I only had to walk another lousy mile and it was all downhill after that. Excelsior! ;-)

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  33. Thanks again. This handy vista does have a bit of myth to it--Olympian or Norse as you please. The clouds, of course, make it look much higher. It's the top of the world at this moment though!

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  34. Yes, you're right. I suspect they would take better care of our world if we weren't around.

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  35. Glad I could find some late-blooming flowers here. And the air was fresh.

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  36. It is the stuff of "sci-fi". I thought about "Dr. Who" myself, as well as the ominous high-desert scenes from the original "Planet of the Apes". And we cannot leave out the "killer rabbit" scenes from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail".

    You have a good eye, AA---it's certainly an "S" carving.

    Hmmm...could have been the start of someone trying to create a dollar sign--- indicating to my trained eye that a party of Los Angeles sub-prime mortgage dealers had come through here a few years before the real estate meltdown of 2008.

    If this is so, perhaps a pack of the rare but deadly Oregon Carnivore Squirrels attacked the loan sharks in an unforgiving swarm, devouring them to their very marrow before they could finish their desecration!.

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  37. Abduction by some sinister force did cross my mind I must admit. AA.

    It really would have been a shame because I just filled up the gas tank before I left for the trip.

    Silver clothes and a greenish complexon--sounds like Oakland Raider NFL football fans after a tough loss and a trip to their local saloon.

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  38. Whatever it is ,Jack, it wasn't welcoming.

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  39. It is quite a sight Jack. Wish I could've captured a bit more of the opposite peak for everybody.

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  40. Thanks Jack. Shasta is a beautiful site when you can view it.

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