Upper Rogue River Trail #1034 - Natural Bridge to Takelma Gorge

July 8, 2020

We continued with our "wandering Wednesdays" this week with a trip to the Union Creek area.  We took Katie and drove to and parked in the Natural Bridge Day Use area to hike a section of the Upper Rogue River  #1034 trail.

Time to hike on a "wandering" Wednesday

View of the Natural Bridge area

 After taking a short hike to view the Natural Bridge area from the man-made bridge over the Rogue River, we began our trek south along the Upper Rogue River trail.  We hiked past Knob Falls, through the Woodruff Bridge area and made our way to our turnaround point, Takelma Gorge.

Lots of Prince's Pine on this hike

Takelma Gorge, our lunch and turnaround point

Along the way we had great views of the beautiful Rogue River, saw a pair of doe's with fawns along the shoreline, osprey and blue heron flying along the river, and were treated to lots of Prince's Pine, Twin Flowers, Wintergreen, Candystick, Wild Roses and Horsemint too.

The beautiful Rogue River

Candystick

The section from Natural Bridge to Woodruff Bridge did have a number of trees across the trail due to lack of trail maintenance this year, and on the section from Woodruff Bridge to Takelma Gorge we had a few sections of trail that were completely overgrown with shrubs.  Made for some interesting navigation.

Tree blockage along the trail.....

....and overgrown shrubs on other sections of trail.

At Takelma Gorge we took a nice break on some stone ledges to enjoy the sound and view of this area.  We only saw a few other hikers throughout our trek.  Weather was great, although towards the end of our 10.5 mile hike the temps were starting to get up in the low 80's and by then were we tired.  Still it was a great day & an incredible hike along a beautiful river.  Beats work anytime!

Trekking Together
Glenn and Carol

Hiking the Oregon Coast Trail -- Getting to 300 miles the hard way

1 July 2020

With summer here, we headed to the coast with Katie for a planned hike along the Oregon Coast Trail (OCT).  The key word in that sentence is "planned".  Things don't always work out as planned, even when hiking.

Time to hike some of the Oregon Coast Trail

Our original plan was to hike from the Whaleshead Beach Day Use Area south to the Lone Ranch Beach Day Use Area and back - a nice 10.4 mile hike along the coast.  After parking at the upper trailhead at Whaleshead Beach, we hiked the OCT connector trail down to the day use area.  Since no one has been maintaining the OCT, at least half of this short hike was in grasses and bushes up to our chest - couldn't even see Katie half the time.  We did emerge from the jungle at the day use area but that should have been a warning sign to us of things to come.

View of Whaleshead Beach - Whaleshead rock is to the right

The next 1.2 miles of the OCT is a hike along the Whaleshead Beach which today was very windy even at 10:00 am.  It was still very beautiful and we enjoyed the sound and sight of the ocean.  After about 1.2 miles the beach comes to an end due to rocks and the OCT heads uphill to the ridges above the beach.  However, that portion of the trail had been wiped out by rains or a landslide.  There was an improvised faint trail heading up (and we do mean up) so we attempted this faint trail but it became a very dangerous situation for man, woman and dog. Rather than risk body and limb, we slowly decended back to the safety of the beach.

The OCT trail is just right of center as it heads up the ridge - very steep

Memorial at the House Rock Viewpoint

House Rock - actually looks more like a house from the beach area.

Ok, so part 1 of our hiking plan failed.  We hiked back along the windy beach (now hiking into the wind)  and back to our car (not along the connector trail) via a gravel road.  We then drove south to the House Rock Viewpoint and decided to hike the OCT south from there to Lone Ranch Beach.   This worked for about a mile when the unmaintained and faint trail pretty much disappeared.  We could have scouted around and maybe picked up the trail, but we didn't want to become the 6 o'clock news "missing hiker" story, so we once again turned around and found our way back to the viewpoint and car.  So part 2 of our hiking plan failed.

View at Lone Ranch Beach

Coastal Daisy

More beautiful coastal flowers

Panorama of Lone Ranch Beach

So it was time for the final "safe" option of driving to Harris Beach State Park where we hiked the Sunset Point trail, through the campground, and along the connector trail to the day use area.  The ocean and beach were beautiful and we took time to sit on a few benches along the trail and just enjoy the sights and sounds of Oregon's beautiful coast.

Glenn and Katie enjoing the view along the Sunset Point Trail

View from bench on Sunset Point Trail

View of South Beach at Harris Beach SP

Even though our day did not go as planned, we still enjoyed seeing the coast and got in 8 miles of hiking anyway which put us over the 300 mile mark for the year - the hard way.

Trekking Together
Glenn and Carol