Cathedral Hills 1-8-25

Photos by Francie

On Wednesday we had 8 hikers come out to hike in Cathedral Hills which is located in Grants Pass. When we started hiking it was in the upper 30s and there was a blanket of fog covering the valley.

We started on the Sky Crest trail and headed up the hill. We cut across the Timber Riders trail to the Outback Loop Trail. From there, we took a left on the Hogback trail to the Walker trail and went left again. This took us down a bunch of switchbacks to the Walker trailhead. We stopped at a picnic table and had some snacks. Then we headed back up the Walker trail and turned left on the Cloverlawn Loop trail. Since there were not many views, we spent a lot of time seeing various types of fungus and lichen. We then connected to the Lower Hogback trail, to the Backside Loop trail to the Espy trailhead.

We stopped at the Espy trailhead and enjoyed a longer lunch. After lunch, we headed up the Outback Loop trail. From there we connected to the Ponderosa Pine trail. The sun came out and we started getting some views of the valley. We connected back to the Outback Loop Trail, then to the Timber Riders Trail. We took a left on the Madrone Trail and again had more views. We connected at the bottom of the Timber Riders trail and back to the parking lot at the Sky Crest Trailhead a little before 2pm.

There are many trails and many different routes you can take. We were able to complete the outer loop this time since we were not in a hurry to get out of the rain. We had hiked around 6.7 miles and had 1,338 feet of elevation gain.