By Cathy Deyo
A great day trip is a visit to the Siskiyou Smokejumper Base museum. It is four miles south of Cave Junction at the Illinois Valley Airport. It is an important part of southern Oregon history.
Our tour guide was a smokejumper at the base and shared a lot of information about the people, parachutes, sewing their own jumpsuits, gear, and many stories about the jumpers and how they got to the fires, fought the fires and walking out when the fire was out. The museum is in three buildings, and there are several planes on the runway. There are artifacts, pictures, and graphs to see.
We were the only two people there that morning and had an hour and a half tour. Visit www.siskiyousmokejumpermuseum.org for more information and a contact number, 541-441-4804, for a guided tour.
Thank you for the great article. We added this to our to-do list for our next trip to Timber Valley. It is especially pertinent to our current situation as we have been residing at a New Mexico state park to put distance between us and the Hermits peak wildfires that are threatening our home.
Richard and Debrann Hickethier
SKP 144620
AWL 68
Our son was a smoke jumper for several years with the USFS out of Redding. This museum is very interesting and highly recommend it.
Reggie #115