Red Buttes Wilderness
| Red Buttes Wilderness | |
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IUCN category Ib (wilderness area)
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| Location | Siskiyou County, California / Josephine County, Oregon, United States |
| Coordinates | 42°00′34″N 123°22′44″W / 42.00944°N 123.37889°WCoordinates: 42°00′34″N 123°22′44″W / 42.00944°N 123.37889°W |
| Area | 19,940 acres (8,070 ha) |
| Established | 1984 |
| Governing body | United States Forest Service |
The Red Buttes Wilderness is a wilderness area in the Klamath and Rogue River national forests in the U.S. states of Oregon and California. It comprises 19,940 acres (8,070 ha), approximately 16,190 acres (6,550 ha) of which is located in California, and 3,750 acres (1,520 ha) in Oregon. It was established by the California Wilderness Act of 1984 and the Oregon Wilderness Act of 1984.
Red Buttes Wilderness is situated in both Oregon and California and includes the crest of the Siskiyou Mountains between the Rogue River and Klamath River drainages. The wilderness is 13 miles (21 km) long and 6 miles (9.7 km) wide, with elevations ranging from 2,800 feet (853 m) in Butte Fork Canyon to 6,740 feet (2,054 m) at the east summit of the Red Buttes.
The main waterways that flow through Red Buttes Wilderness are all part of the Rogue River watershed, including the Butte Fork and the Middle Fork of the Applegate River, as well as Sucker Creek, a tributary of the Illinois River. The Wilderness contains the headwaters of the Illinois River.
Red Buttes Wilderness takes its name from the dominant peak along the Siskiyou Crest; because of its high iron and magnesium content, the butte's rock is a reddish-orange color.
The Siskiyou Mountains are part of the larger "Klamath Mountains Province" of southwestern Oregon and northwestern California, and they include some of the oldest rocks in the region. The former ocean-bottom sediments that make up most of the Wilderness are several hundred million years old. Over time they were slowly changed by pressure and heat into the complex variety of metamorphic rocks present today: schist, quartzite, gneiss, and several outcrops of white marble. During the last ice age small glaciers sculpted the Siskiyou basins that now contain lakes and meadows.
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