Cathedral Hills – Espey Trailhead

The Espey Trailhead at Cathedral Hills connects to 10 miles of trail with the almost 4 mile Outback Loop a main route.

Driving
– The Espey Trailhead is 1 hour and 10 minutes from Ashland if you take this route. Head north on the Interstate 5 towards Medford and exit at the Phoenix exit. Turn left and then right onto route 66 again and quickly you will see South Stage Road. Turn left there and head towards Jacksonville. Route 66 jogs right and left at Griffin Creek Road, and becomes ‘California Street’ as it passes through Jacksonville, but you know what makes sense… it becomes Route 238 after Jacksonville. (sarcasm alert. Doesn’t make sense!)
Drive past Ruch and it’s big yellow house. You are heading into Wine & Weed country. Drive through Applegate and across the green bridge over Applegate River. Drive past the Williams turn off. And finally, after more than an hour, you will see a small Cathedral Hills Trails sign. Turn right on Espey Road toward the golf course. Pass the golf course and follow Espey Road as it sweeps to the left and dead ends into the parking lot.

Parking
– This is the real deal. Lots of spots, lots of signage, 3 different trailheads, and… pit toilets.

The Adventure
– There are 3 trails from the parking lot. The furthest to the right is the Backside Loop and it heads over toward the Walker trailhead. We are taking the Outback loop today and that is the trail furthest to your left just below the pit toilets.

This is one of the main trails through Cathedral Hills, but don’t get cocky. There are so many branches splitting off of the main trail that sometimes its the Outback loop that splits off. Watch the signs. Although the Outback Loop is closer to 3 miles than 4… I am assuming that everyone will take a few detours along the way so, 4 miles it is.

This is a great entrance to all of Cathedral Hills for mountain bikes and you will see a lot of horse traffic entering from the Ponderosa Pine Trail. Look, make your own loop, or loops, or a wormhole of loops,I don’t care. Just remember that you parked at the Espey Trailhead and look for that on many of the signposts. Good luck. Print out a map maybe.