Wagner Creek Interpretive Trail
Wagner Creek Interpretive Trail is not much of a trail really. It’s a nice picnic area on Wagner Creek though.
Driving
–This is a short, 15 minute drive. Head north out of town on Siskiyou/ Route 99 toward Medford and don’t even get on the freeway. A couple miles up, before you reach the tiny town of Talent look for the tiny road East Rapp Road and turn left. Rapp Road jogs right, then left, then ends at Wagner Creek Road. Turn left and then enjoy 10 of rural, farmy, countryside. Keep an eye out on your left for the creekside park the second the asphalt becomes gravel.
Parking
– There is room for 3 cars on the left side of the raod, otherwise you park a little further back on the right.
The Adventure
– Okay, ‘adventure’ is too strong. You can picnic. Walk across the bridge… eat at tables. The trail along the creek runs 1/4 mile and there’s a nice swimming area right there before you head uphill and return to the beginning slightly higher on the hill. The numbered signs don’t correlate to anything at all. Unless you live nearby, this place almost isn’t worth visiting.
Maybe this is the perfect park for high school kids to hide out at lunchtime and smoke. Or it was where a bunch of Boy Scouts did their Eagle Scout projects. I feel like there used to be more to this park at some point.
Each marker points out unique plants and features found on this beautiful easy trail. The guide was available until recently. Bikers are damaging the trail, markers, and plants of this delicate ecology.
See my photo album on this area! This may be a short trail, but you could spend a lifetime learning the plants in this area, especially the mosses and lichens. It has some plants not found elsewhere in the Rogue Valley, tho abundant up north and on the coast. Salal, Red Huckleberry, wood sorrel, and others. Best always to attend this area after a rain, in early spring, to see the abundance! Please don’t put this area down like that! Some of us don’t hike very far, any more, anyway. Walk, and look!!
OOps, I meant my Facebook album.
Boy Scout Troop 60 did a project with the BLM and Talent Historical Society for this trail. They made a little booklet to a lines with the trail. It seem to be meant for education proposes. Each marker either talks about ecology, native history, or Camp Fire girls using it from the 1940’s to the 1970’s.