By Ron Brown
 
September 1, 2010
 
NEAR WOLF CREEK, Ore. - A nearly $50-million project to add hill-climbing lanes for trucks on Interstate 5 north of Grants Pass has archeologists looking for traces of the historic Applegate Trail.
 
Volunteers and professionals are scouring the hills and canyons between Grants Pass and Wolf Creek mapping the 160-year old route. More than a 150 years of road building has all but wiped out much of the pioneer route.
 
"If we can find intact segments of it, it would be an archeological resource, and something that we feel would be significant to Southern Oregon and the history of the settlement, and how people came to and went through the valley," SOU Archeologist Chelsea Rose said.
 
The Oregon Department of Transportation wants to know where the trail is to avoid wiping it out with future construction projects.
 
"It's hard to tell where it is exactly, and we're just trying to get as many resources as we can to say where it is, and then narrow out from there," SOU Archeologist Katie Johnson said.
 
According to ODOT, the $49.6 million project will begin in 2013 to build north and southbound climbing lanes on Sexton Pass, between the Hugo and Sunny Valley exits. Next year, a similar project is planned for southbound lanes at Rice Hill and Sutherlin Hill, north of Roseburg.