The Peak View Newsletter July 27th, 2026
Rose Young
By Barry Wulff
As a new Sierra Club hike leader, I had no sense of who or how many might show up for the hike I was to lead to McCulloch Peak. I arrived at the meeting point fifteen minutes before the scheduled meeting time, looking forward to meeting the participants. A few minutes before the hour, only one participant showed up. It was Monika Shepherd. We hadn't met until then.
I told her that unless someone else showed up, I’d have to cancel the hike. The Club rules require hikes to have at least two participants in addition to the leader. No other participants showed up, so I told Monika that the hike was cancelled. I mentioned to her that, because it was such a fine day and I was primed for the hike, that I was going to do it myself. She asked if I’d like company. I responded, “Yes, but it won't be an official Sierra Club hike." She was comfortable with the arrangement, and off we went to the McDonald Forest trailhead.
That first hike with Monika in 1995, and many subsequent hikes in the intervening years, solidified a lasting friendship. After hiking up to McCulloch Peak, she became a regular hiker with the Marys Peak Group on local trails, initially in McDonald Forest, the Siuslaw Forest, Peavy Arboretum, and the Finley National Wildlife Refuge. As years passed, she joined MPG hikes into the Old Cascades as well as several hikes on Mt. Hood. She joined a three-day backpack trip that circumvented the Three Sisters. It was always a pleasure to see her grand, reassuring smile on rough sections of the trail or during a torrential downpour.
As years passed, Monika ventured farther afield with the MPG, joining MPG groups going to the red rock country of Utah, to Hawaii, Anza-Borrego, the California redwoods, and even to Costa Rica. No matter how near or how far the MPG travelled, we could count on Monika being with us. Monika’s skills for organizing group meals were unbelievable to many. For years, she coordinated, with several others, the meals for the MPG spring galas at Dancing Oaks nursery, and winter x-country ski weekends at Sunriver. The latter involved meals in three separate houses! One never had to worry about food with Monika at the helm.
Several years ago, Monika and I hiked around Patjens Lakes, off Santiam Pass. It was a very hot day. While driving through Sweet Home, Monika said that she was very thirsty and we should stop to quench our thirst. I agreed. She directed me to stop at the A&W restaurant. There, we ended up having root beer floats, recalling our days as youngsters when sodas were the in thing. Monika was forever very cheerful and young at heart.
All three webinars from the 2026 Liz and Bob Frenkel Spring Environment Series, with the theme of Listening to the Land, are now recorded on YouTube and are available to the public. Each of these webinars provide unique insights into both the history and current conditions of the land in the Willamette Valley. We encourage everyone to watch these recordings. The webinars are co-sponsored by the Marys Peak Group Sierra Club and the Corvallis-Benton County Public Library. The webinars honor the lives and environmental work of Liz and Bob Frenkel, who led the founding of the Marys Peak Group and the Oregon Chapter of the Sierra Club.
A Kalapuya Legacy: Oak Savannas and Prairies on OSU Lands
By Dr. Dennis Albert, OSU researcher
Learn how our local Oregon White Oaks and native herbaceous species on OSU lands reveal Kalapuya ancestral culture and about our conditions today.
Link to YouTube recording:
YouTube: A Kalapuya Legacy: Oak Savannas and Prairies on OSU Lands
What we can learn from Ancient Douglas-fir of the OSU McDonald-Dunn Forest
By Dr. Meg Krawchuck & Charles Drake, OSU Researchers
Learn how our local ancient Douglas-firs help us understand how ancestral Indigenous cultural practices, including fire, reflected and impacted the human experience and why it matters for current forest management.
Link to YouTube recording:
YouTube: Implications Found in Ancient Trees of the OSU McDonald-Dunn Forest
Lessons from the Land: Cultivating Abundance through Land-Based Education
By Marta Capriles, Corvallis Waldorf School Agricultural Arts teacher
Learn how a local schoolyard was developed into a dynamic farmscape in which the students tend the land and learn to work with its gifts through an Indigenized curriculum. Perhaps you can learn a few things about gardening/farming also.
Link to YouTube recording:
YouTube: Cultivating Abundance through Land-Based Education
Take Action to Save the Roadless Rule!
One of the most important US Forest Service conservation policies is on the verge of being cut by the Trump administration. If the Roadless Area Conservation Rule is repealed, 45 million acres of pristine national forests across the country will be opened up for the first time in over 20 years to road building and the logging, mining, and extractive industries that come with that.
This policy was created by the Forest Service because it was ecologically critical, fiscally responsible, and overwhelmingly popular. Now the administration is repealing it, citing fire concerns and timber value - but neither of those justifications stands up to scrutiny.
Last year, over 600,000 people voiced their support for this rule, but the Trump administration is steamrolling ahead and ignoring the American public. Our goal is to continue to demonstrate how popular this policy is, and to raise more awareness about it, by submitting even more comments to the administration than last year.
Join your voice with thousands of others by submitting your comment today!
Note: The US Forest Service has not opened a comment period on this issue yet, but we are expecting them to only take comments for 14 days once the docket is open. To help show the broad support for the Roadless Rule, the Sierra Club will be collecting comments until the comment period is open, and then will deliver those collected to the US Forest Service.
Contact the Sierra Club at sc.org/roadlessrule and share your comments.
1) Newcomers to MPG outing events, please view the GENERAL OUTING POLICY on our MPG website, http://oregon2.sierraclub.org/marys-peak before pre-registering for or attending an outing.
2) Contacting Marys Peak Group: Marys Peak Group contact information is obtainable at http://oregon2.sierraclub.org/marys-peak Listed are the Executive Committee members and the Administrative and Program Coordinators.
3) Minutes of the MPG Executive Committee (ExCom) meetings for the last 5 years can be viewed by clicking on minutes. The ExCom meetings are held on Zoom and occur quarterly. All current Sierra Club members are welcome to attend. Contact MarysPe...@Oregon.Sierraclub.org to get the Zoom link.
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OSU Forestry Recreation Updates: