This is a landscape of exceptional geologic complexity and one of the great reservoirs of biological diversity in North America. The Siskiyous are a crossroads in time and space where plant species from such diverse ecological regions as the high deserts of the Great Basin and the fog shrouded Pacific Coast, have converged in unique combinations. It has served as a refuge for plants and trees that existed during the age of the dinosaurs, now lost from other areas of the West during periods of climate change, submergence, and massive flows of lava and ice. Siskiyou Wild Rivers is the last big wild area near the Pacific coast. Look at a map of Oregon and you ll see that most of the lands in the coastal range are privately owned.
Private ownership means that most of the entire landscape has been logged at least once.
In fact, other than the Olympic Peninsula in Washington, there is no other large wildland so close to the coast in the Pacific Northwest. This is the largest concentration of wild, undammed watersheds left on the West Coast. These rivers and their tributaries contain some of the most valuable salmon and steelhead habitat in the contiguous United States and are a critical refuge for native wild fish populations at risk of extinction. The Siskiyou Wild Rivers is one of the few remaining places where a refuge for Pacific salmon could be successfully established. Logging, mining and roads all threaten the Siskiyou Wild Rivers.