Located
in the eastern Siskiyou Mountains of southwestern Oregon, Trillium
is located approximately 10 miles north of the California border,
and 10 miles west of Interstate 5. It is slightly less than an hour
drive from the small cities of Ashland, Medford, and Grants Pass.
Trillium sits in a “banana belt” microclimate with warmer,
sunnier winters than most of the surrounding areas, making the
location excellent for organic gardening and year-round retreats.
Four distinct seasons feature a luxuriantly green springtime, long
hot summers, colorful autumns brilliant with the turning of
deciduous trees, and mild winters with just enough snow to remind us
of the season.
Trillium lies deep in the
canyon of the Little Applegate River at its confluence with Birch
Creek, and between two roadless areas that have been nominated for
wilderness protection. The surrounding landscape supports a complex
mosaic of ecosystems, including old-growth conifer forest, oak
woodland, diverse shrublands, extensive dry grasslands, and wet
meadows. Trails at Trillium link with miles of hiking trails on the
surrounding federal land, surrounded by pristine mountains up to
5,200 feet in elevation. The Siskiyou crest rises at the head of the
Little Applegate watershed, where the Pacific Crest Trail weaves
between several peaks above 7,000 feet in elevation.
Topographically, Trillium
is blessed by a unique arrangement of mountains and canyons. The
Little Applegate River canyon runs east-west, brining in lots of
sunlight from early morning into the evening. Birch Creek canyon
opens to the south, providing the sweet little valley with a
southern exposure that fills with sunshine during sunny winter days.
Surrounding mountains often create a local zone of high pressure,
ensuring many sunny days while other areas nearby are cloaked with
clouds or filled with fog.
Within a few hours’
drive of Trillium are many natural attractions such as Crater Lake
National Park and the soaring volcanoes of the Cascade Range,
including Mt. Shasta. Further
east lie the high deserts, and westward, the road to the coast
passes through Redwood National Park. The tangled geology of this
Klamath-Siskiyou bioregion is carved by several world class Wild and
Scenic Rivers including the Rogue, Klamath, California Salmon,
Umpqua, Illinois, Chetco, Trinity, and Smith. Interstate 5 provides
scenic access to distant cities: 5 hours north to Portland or south
to Sacramento.
The town of choice for
shopping, social life, and outside employment is beautiful Ashland,
a small city of about 20,000 nestled in a long narrow valley where
the Siskiyou and Cascade Mountains collide. Ashland, a university
and arts town, hosts Southern Oregon University and the
world-renowned Oregon Shakespeare Festival. The city also owns its
snow board/ski area, 7,545-foot Mt. Ashland, highest peak in the
Siskiyous.
The closest town to
Trillium is Jacksonville, a National Historic District, and home of
the Peter Britt Music Festival. Jacksonville’s restored pioneer
era buildings, museum, and the Southern Oregon Historical Society
bring history alive in everyday life.
The
following paragraphs providing greater detail about Trillium’s
setting are excerpted from The
Trillium Book, a guidebook for living at Trillium:
Trillium
is 80 acres, deep in the eastern Siskiyou Mountains where Birch
Creek flows through several ponds and over a waterfall into the
Little Applegate River. A
primitive footbridge is the only development in the inner river
canyon, which serves as a campground for our larger events.
The river's riparian ecology is intact and provides excellent
spawning habitat for Coho salmon and steelhead.
Most
of the community is located in the beautiful little canyon of Birch
Creek, where historic community buildings, cabins, and gardens are
placed along a string of ponds, meadows, and groves of trees.
Two springs supply gravity-fed water to the canyon and to a
tall adjoining ridge, where gardens and several cabins are located
on the southern exposure. On
the summit of this ridge is a medicine wheel with wide views of the
surrounding wildlands we call the Dakubetede Wilderness (in honor of
the Native People who once lived in the Little Applegate Watershed).
The expansive views from the Medicine Wheel extend for many miles in
every direction. The power and wildness of this place manifests at
night by the complete absence of lights, no matter where you look!
Trillium
serves as a wildlife sanctuary for many species, and as a place
where humans can become comfortable with the power of wild country
on a daily basis. These
surrounding wildlands feature an extensive trail system and several
thousand pristine acres of remote canyons, high ridges, huge
meadows, and virgin forests to explore.
Sunny and dry in the rain shadow of the Siskiyous' highest
peaks, this area is critical deer winter range and home to coyote,
bear, bobcat, mountain lion, birds of prey, nesting songbirds, and
even endangered turtles living in ponds once used to raise trout.
Biodiversity
is strong here with many diverse ecosystems draped in complex
mosaics over the varied landscape.
Rich forests of conifers and hardwood trees, including a rare
birch, fill the canyons. The
ridges are covered with steep meadows, oak woodlands, and diverse
shrub communities dominated by manzanita, ceanothus, bitter cherry,
Klamath plum, and mountain mahogany.
The north slope of Trillium Mountain rises over it all,
providing splendid views of old-growth conifer forest.
Many of the plant communities and individual species are at
the edge of their ranges here, where the Siskiyous link the coast
ranges to the west, the Cascade/Sierras to the east, and the
Willamette and Sacramento valley systems to the north and south.
The
river, creek, and several ponds provide varied opportunities to
study aquatic ecology. The
complex geology of the Klamath Knot is evident here, with limestone
and metamorphics interacting around Trillium, and extensive granitic
and serpentine systems nearby in the higher elevations along the
Siskiyou Crest.
Beyond
educational opportunities, the power of the wild Nature in which we
are embedded can fill us with an even deeper nourishment than clear
water and clean air. It
provides an inspiration, a psychic grounding, a way to get in touch
with our own wild natures; healing and returning us to our original
home within and without.