Dollar Mountain Trail

The Dollar Mountain Trail is under 2.5 miles out and back in a neighborhood of Grants Pass. This is by no means a destination trail.

Driving
– It will take you about 1 hour to get here from Ashland Plaza. Jump onto interstate 5 and head north past Medford towards Grants Pass. In about 30 miles you will arrive at the first Medford exit #55, to Route 199 and you should take that. Turn left, go under the interstate, and immediately turn right on Agnus.

Agnus slowly veers left and changes names into Foothill, and then A Street. Once you Pass 6th street (one of the main streets in town) you will turn left, then right, to get over to B Street. Now B street heads into the neighbor hoods and turns right, curves around a little, and then hits a definite dead end where you will turn left onto Crescent Drive.  There is a small sign there pointing left with “Dollar Mountain Trailhead” on it, but it’s easy to miss. In about 200 yards you will arrive.

Parking
– There is a pull out on the left with room for 6 cars or so. You can pull a U-ey, or just jam in the wrong direction. It’s not a well planned parking area so it’s a bit of a free-for-all. Then… run across the street to the trail head.

The Adventure
– It’s maybe 2 1/2 miles up to the “Generic Radio Wave & 5-G Electromagnetic Poisoning Tower” and back. It’s a decent workout with some decent views, but it is not maintained at all. It is sandy and slippery. If you hike trails occasionally, you will clearly see the main trail along the ridge-line up to the tower and back. If you are wearing rubber flip-flops and taking selfies the whole time, you may turn onto one of the many lower side trails that head into the woods. Good luck with that.

If you are feeling strong, you can continue past the “Radioactive Tower” and make it a 3 1/2 mile hike along the service road that services the tower, which has a number of side trails, (and a wrong turn can take you into a far away neighborhood) but you can end up out on Crescent Road where you drove in on B street. Remember that? Look at the Ashlandtrails.com map where I have this route highlighted. I did this, and ran into some kids shooting things with their paintball guns and smoking… maybe not meth? Just sayin’… it becomes… “unsanctioned” really quick.