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0 of 3 Premium Clicks used this month SUBSCRIBE Print + Online Subscriber Activation | Register x Forgot Password | Need an Account? subscribe | newsletter | deals Classifieds Jobs Autos Real Estate FEATURED » NEWS NOW OSF project translating Bard into modern English stirs international debate ... Roseburg shooting victim describes gunman's rampage ... Guest Opinion: Plaza fencing is ugly and wasteful ... OSF project translating Bard into modern English stirs international debate ... Roseburg shooting victim describes gunman's rampage ... Guest Opinion: Plaza fencing is ugly and wasteful ... WILD SIDE Cow patties and hot chocolate on the Siskiyou Crest Comment By Joseph Vaile DailyTidings.com By Joseph Vaile Posted Oct. 13, 2015 at 4:57 PM By Joseph Vaile Posted Oct. 13, 2015 at 4:57 PM » Social News My 4-year-old son loves camping, so we recently embarked on a mission to one of the closest camping destinations to Ashland. With road access, pit toilets, and views of Mount Shasta, we set out for the quaint Mt. Ashland Campground. It’s a convenient spot close to town with wide-open sky. Nearby, Mt. Ashland and McDonald Peak offer fantastic views. It’s also easy to hop onto the Pacific Crest Trail through meadows exploding with wildflowers, and even a grove of quaking aspen. It turned out to be an eventful trip. Arriving at dusk, we settled in and quickly made friends with our campground neighbors. They invited us to their site and made my son very happy with hot chocolate we enjoyed. I turned my back for a second and my boy let out a bloodcurdling scream. It was surely heard by every living being in a 10-mile radius. I guess the nice neighbors didn’t realize a 4-year-old needs his hot chocolate a tad cooler than boiling hot. They were apologetic. He was stunned but thankfully not in need of medical attention. I told them not to worry about it and we went off to our tent for the night. We had an early morning ahead of us anyway. Our mission: Find the species Bos taurus. Yes, cows — scientific name Bos taurus. This is the point in the story where you’re likely wondering why I’m out with my son looking for cows in the national forest. Recently, several people alerted KS Wild that cows were spotted in this area near Mt. Ashland — near boundaries like the Ashland watershed, where they are off limits. Grazing on public lands has a long history. Responding to impacts from overgrazing, Congress passed the Taylor Grazing Act in 1934 to begin regulating livestock. In the 1960s and 1970s, environmental laws were passed, but even the Wilderness Act of 1964 had grandfathered in grazing as part of multiple use on lands owned by the American public. In the Rogue and Klamath River basins there are dozens of allotments administered by the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management where scattered forage exists often sparsely between more forested areas. For decades, cattle trespass from the Klamath National Forest onto the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest has led to a well-documented tension between the two National Forests about the scope and scale of the impacts. For the record, I occasionally consume animal products, and think there are appropriate places for cows on this planet of ours. But many recreationists are alarmed to witness cows overgrazing wet meadows on public land. I’ve been in remote wilderness areas where I haven’t seen people for days, but end up walking through minefields of cow patties. Not only does this put a damper on the trip, but also harms native flora in often already threatened alpine ecosystems. We saw no cows on our trek that next day on Mt. Ashland, but we did see plenty of fresh cow pies at Grouse Gap and along road 20. In time, I hope we can work more diligently to prevent damage from cows and limit conflicts between grazing and clean water, botanical values and recreational uses. In the meantime, groups like KS Wild and the Soda Mountain Wilderness Council are taking matters into our own hands. We have worked with ranchers to retire allotments, and have raised money to purchase allotments at fair market value prices. Some ranchers call this the Golden Saddle. In addition to raising the money, it takes an act of Congress to retire an allotment. The Soda Mountain Wilderness Council has helped retire several allotments in the Cascade Siskiyou National Monument east of Ashland. We are currently working on such a deal in the western Siskiyou Mountains near the Oregon Caves National Monument. If you go: Forest Service Road 20 is past the Mt. Ashland Ski Area parking lot; it meanders along the Siskiyou Crest, back and forth across the ridge that marks the boundary of the Klamath and Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forests. Beware of cow pies and anyone offering you a cup of hot chocolate. Joseph Vaile is executive director of the Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center (KS Wild, 541-488-5789, www.kswild.org ). His Wild Side column appears every three weeks. By Joseph Vaile DailyTidings.com By Joseph Vaile Posted Oct. 13, 2015 at 4:57 PM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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