Hike Coordinator: Richard O’Neill
Narration by Richard O’Neill
Misery loves company and I’ve been known to take friends on a hike that made me miserable. However, the opposite can be true in that happy hikers also love company, which is why I took the Friends to the Upper Rogue River. The Upper Rogue is the site of many of our favorite hikes such as Rogue Gorge, Takelma Gorge, Natural Bridge, and Knob Falls. However, north of these iconic places, the Upper Rogue River Trail has not felt the love in terms of trail maintenance and the number of visitors. That’s too bad, for this section is certainly worthy of a visit.
Eight of us set out on the trail from the Big Bend Trailhead and immediately, the tenor of the Rogue River was noticeably different from the aforementioned iconic hikes. Here the Rogue snakes back and forth in a series of serpentine bends, the river seemingly in no hurry to reach the turbulence downstream. The river is placid and serene and the tranquility cannot help but soothe your soul, although it didn’t stop me from making fart jokes.
The trail alternated between dark conifer woods and river overlooks from tall cliffs. In the woods, an understory of alder trees with leaves glowing yellow waved the autumn colors. On the ground, tall bracken fern likewise added to the fall vibe while making the trail faint and hard to follow. The tall cliffs were comprised of volcanic ash deposited when Mount Mazama blew its top and created Crater Lake.
At about the three-mile mark, the trail passed the largest log jam in the world, extending hundreds of yards. The Rogue here, snakes through the logs in an equally large open meadow. The terrain is marshy here, but a large footbridge keeps boots dry and made a logical place to eat lunch at. Several of us continued on into the woods on an increasingly faint trail that led to another picturesque overlook of the mirrorlike river.
On the way back, the forest vegetation was wet as if it had rained but fortunately, the rain missed us. We even enjoyed some sunlight on this cool day, the weather gods refusing to rain on our hiking parade…this time.
More pictures of this hike on Richard O’Neill’s Flickr page
Pictures below by Richard O’Neill
