Publisher's Synopsis
Welcome to AshlandTrails.com: The Book. Based on AshlandTrails.com: The Website. Is there a Google.com: The Book, Apple.com: The Book, facebook.com: The Book? No, no, & no. Is this the beginning of trail books 2.0, where every trail book has it's own website? Hey, you just read it, so it must be true. For the most part this is a regular day hiking trail guide. It is super local. Every trail is within a one hour drive from Ashland Oregon. There are maps and descriptions and parking tips and elevation gains. The usual stuff. But there is plenty of unusual stuff. This book is like taking a hike with an old friend from high school. The goal is to find fun things, get back to the car without getting lost, and having some great stories to tell at work the next day. Other books are fine, but it's more like hiking with your old college instructor. Lots more information than you need while they're trying to remind you that they have an English degree. I am not knocking a nice advanced degree mind you. I have a forestry degree from Michigan State University. But I haven't been a forester for over 30 years so I have very few dendrology muscles that haven't atrophied. I got Doug Fir, Ponderosa Pine, Madrone, and then it starts to get fuzzy. Another unusual part of this book? Videos. Can you put a video into a book? Well that's what we are going to find out. Can you put a trail into a video? Let's find that out as well. Every trail has a QR code you can scan with your phone. Now let me address the elephant in the Rogue Valley. My apologies to Medford and Jacksonville and Central Point and Talent and all the other Jackson County villages. You could have all been the title of this book. But I began my adventures here in southern Oregon, 21 years ago, from my home base in Ashland. And that's where most of the local trails are anyway, so quit your bellyaching already, okay.
