This article was originally published in the June/July 2025 issue of UltraRunning Magazine. Subscribe today for similar features on ultra training, racing and more.
I think about trails a lot—the ones I’ve run and those I want to explore—and pour over maps of trails winding through land “unexplored by me” near and far. I think about the trails lost to history that have been either forgotten, paved over or so destroyed that I’ll never get to run them, like the Native American trails through the Cumberland Gap or parts of the Oregon Trail, and trails through the passes of the high Sierra that were traveled by Indigenous people or mountain men of the 19th century. There are lost trails everywhere, and some are just waiting to be found and explored once again.
I grew up outside of the tiny southern Oregon town of Merlin, in the northwest corner of the Siskiyou Mountains. It was there that I used to run through the forest making up fake scenarios of survival and learning to explore. Merlin was right at the doorstep of the vast Kalmiopsis Wilderness. I was in the fourth grade when we moved away, and didn’t get a chance to explore this vast tract of land between Merlin and the Pacific Ocean except through a few camping trips and day hikes. Then, in 2002, the entire wilderness was almost completely ravaged by fire, leaving it burned, bleak and desolate for a generation. The trails, lakes, valleys and peaks were basically forgotten until 2009.
It wasn’t until I was an adult that I started returning to the area for camping, turkey hunting and running. I began to take interest as I saw news out of southern Oregon, my old stomping grounds, that a group was starting to rehabilitate and open trails in the Kalmiopsis. I’ve been following the Siskiyou Mountain Club’s (SMC) activities ever since. We have many trail organizations doing great work, but what intrigued me the most about the Siskiyou Mountain Club was that they were focused on opening up lost trails. Why is that interesting? Because we’re explorers. We use trails to access new areas, find out what’s around the next corner and see things that not many other people get to see, at least not without a great deal of sweat equity.
I was fortunate enough to talk with the founder, Gabe Howe, about why and how he fell into the role as the executive director of the Siskiyou Mountain Club.
Howe started the Siskiyou Mountain Club in 2009 after returning to the Kalmiopsis Wilderness on a backpacking trip with his future wife. They realized how much had been destroyed by the Biscuit Fires of 2002, started clearing trail and haven’t stopped.
“While we were out on a trail, there was one experience in particular where we started just throwing debris off the trail. And we kind of said, okay, let’s just keep doing this,” said Howe. “By 2010, we were enlisting volunteers who were backpacking out there with us for a week at a time to undo that damage and get through the thick brush. It was just a lot of fun. Everyone was there for the right reasons. We were young. We were excited. And from that, the organization started to formalize and we grew a staff and brought things to where we’re at now,” said Howe.
Initially, he could envision the potential for the club to turn into something bigger. Between 2010 and 2015, the organization went from grabbing buddies to clear trail, to making inroads with the Forest Service, acquiring grants and Howe becoming the full-time executive director.
Program Manager Karly White leads volunteers on a traverse of the Kalmiopsis Wilderness Area. Photo: Trevor Meyer
Over the past 10 years, the club has continued to grow. They have added full-time staff, developed an intern program that has served hundreds of young outdoors people by giving them leadership and technical skills to form their own programs elsewhere, or establish careers with the Forest Service. Every three years, the SMC helps maintain 400 miles of trail in southern Oregon and northern California, and their efforts have rehabilitated about 200 miles of trail that had previously been destroyed.
One of the crown gems that Howe likes to mention is the Illinois River National Recreation Trail. This is a little-known trail in southern Oregon, in comparison to the Rogue River Trail, that connects the tiny rural communities of Agness and Selma together with 30 miles of trail over rugged terrain. Howe says, “When we started working on it in 2015, it was not that the Illinois River Trail ever presented such a battle in its whole, but we had no money for it. We were just kind of going out there as volunteer groups and piecing it together. I don’t think we got any real money for it until 2018 or 2019 after the Chetco Bar Fire.”
“We were playing whack-a-mole. We’d get one section opened up, but then another section down the road would fill in and we just weren’t able to get continuity. It wasn’t until 2021 when we finally golden spiked it and we could hike from one end to the other. Then in 2024, there was the Flat Fire, so we’re actually going to be in there later this month to work, and it should be a whole trail again. I mean it’s taken so much investment in the last 10 years. There is not another way that that thing would have stayed open.”
Before and after photo in the Kalmiopsis Wilderness. Photo: Tiffani Ayres
This year already is presenting its own challenges for the SMC with Forest Service cuts and decreased funding for grants. Howe has pointed to several trips that included volunteers coming together in defense of public land. It is rare that he gets opposition from one side or the other on what he is trying to accomplish in re-opening trails, and that is almost completely unheard of. Howe pointed out that the work SMC is doing is “so that people have an avenue to go further into the backcountry or wilderness via horse or their own two feet. What we’re really talking about here is the idea that there is a multi-generational connection with these places that exist outside of any sort of political administration or funding trends with the federal government, or budgets and that sort of thing. So, what I’m definitely seeing now more clearly illuminated is the idea that throughout these communities, there is a bedrock of support.”
Clubs like the SMC need resources to be able to continue the work they do. Trails need to remain open so that new areas can be explored. Fortunately, there is a vast network of trails, but we can’t forget they also need vast amounts of support to remain operational.
Here is my plea to you, the readers: if you are not already a member, get involved with your local trail organization—they need your support. As funding dries up, it will be up to the community to help support these organizations through volunteer hours and memberships.
Personally, if you know of lost trails or rumors of lost trails, I’d love to know more. Whether they were lost to fire, history or for some other reason, hit me up on Instagram.
For the full interview with Gabe Howe, visit MaxKingTRC.com/Max.
Instagram: @maxkingor