Archive for November, 2010
A Visit to Stone Mountain
From the road along the east side of Groundhog Mountain, there is a great view of the cliffs at Stone Mountain less than 3.5 miles to the northwest.
Stone Mountain is a popular geographical name, especially back East, but amazingly enough, there is only one Stone Mountain in Oregon. It’s in Lane County, just east of Hills Creek Reservoir. There are no trails, but there is a road leading right to the quarry at its base at around 3500′. From nearby Groundhog Mountain last month, I got a good view of the striking 300-400′ cliffs on the east side above the quarry. With all the great plants I’ve seen at Groundhog, Moon Point, and Youngs Rock, I not only wanted to check out these irresistible cliffs, I wanted to explore this area just a bit to the north of my usual haunts. Yesterday (November 12), the pleasant dry weather gave us a good opportunity, so Sabine and I drove out to Hills Creek Reservoir south of Oakridge to see what we might have been missing. Read the rest of this entry »