Jeffrey Loop & Little Falls Loop

April 13, 2018

Going hiking always sounds like a good excuse to leave work early.  So despite the clouds, threat of rain, and the fact that it was Friday the 13th,  Glenn used the "going hiking" excuse at work and with our pack and pup in the car, we drove just south of Selma to hike a group of trails along the Illinois River.

Up first, the Jeffrey Pine Loop trail

We have hiked all of these trails before and they offer some great views of the river and include a wide variety of plants and flowers.  However, we didn't expect to see very many wildflowers today since the cold weather is still hanging around.  But as we started hiking the Jeffrey Pine Loop clockwise, we were soon treated to groups of Camas Lilies, Phlox and Wild Pansies.  Little did we know that this was only the beginning of the wildflower parade.

Camas

Phlox

Wild Pansy

After completing half of the Jeffrey Pine Loop, we merged onto the Little Falls connector trail that would take us to the Little Falls Loop and campground area.  Parts of the trail were very muddy and covered by water from recent rains and runoffs, but we managed to work our way along the trail. Of course these portions of trail caused no problem for Katie to navigate. Death Camas, Lemon Colored Fawn Lilies, Mule's Ear, and Iris along with more Phlox, Pansies and Camas led to many oohs and aahs as our hike continued. We even saw a few Checker Lilies - a variety of Fritillary. In some areas there were large patches of Fawn Lilies or Camas making quite the show.

Illinois River

Lemon Colored Fawn Lilies

Checker Lily

When we arrived at the campground area, we continued on to the Little Falls Loop which is around a mile in distance, about the same as the Jeffrey Pine Loop.  More wildflowers here included many appearances by Indian Paintbrush and Mule's Ear.  We also were treated to some amazing views of a very full and fast Illinois river.  So full that the Little Falls were not falls at all, just part of the river.

Mule's Ear

Little Falls on the Illinois River.  The falls normally would be visible in the lower left corner - a 4-6 ft cascade - not today!

Indian Paintbrush

Our return hike on the Little Falls connector trail gave us a second chance to see and enjoy all the wildflowers again - many that we didn't mention due to not knowing their names.  We then hiked the last half of the Jeffrey Pine Loop back to the car.  But before we left, we crossed the road and hiked up to and along the Eight Dollar Mt Botanical Boardwalk trail.  The main feature of this very short boardwalk trail is the California Pitcher Plants at the end, but they are not in season till May - June.  Still lots of other wildflowers to view along this short trail.

Our trail to the right, Katie's trail to the left.

One last trail to hike.

The California Pitcher plant area at the end of the boardwalk

So four short trails (total of 4.5 miles) with lots of wildflowers and views of a beautiful river.  Sounds like a good excuse to go hiking, and it was!

Trekking Together
Glenn & Carol

Jeffrey Loop - Illinois River - Little Falls Loop Trail

October 17, 2015

Back in February we hiked a group of trails south of Selma that included the Jeffrey Loop trail, Little Falls Loop trail and a connector trail that we called the Illinois River trail.  Although all 3 trails combined are under five miles total, it was still a nice new hike for us that allowed various access spots to the beautiful Illinois River.

First view of the low but beautiful Illinois river

Having enjoyed that hike, we ventured back to hike it again despite the forecast of clouds and rain.  For specific details on the hike in February or links for the area, click here.

Suffice to say, the river was very low on this Autumn hike but still beautiful.  By being at such a low level, the Little Falls were actually a waterfall instead of a roaring narrow chute of water as  it was in February.

Little Falls - actually visible as a waterfall in Autumn

Katie enjoyed a no-leash hike that included dips in the river and occasional bear scat on the trail, while we enjoyed stretching our legs and taking in all the beautiful views as well as taking a break along the river. Below are some more pictures for your viewing pleasure.  Get out and enjoy the season!

Trekking Together
Glenn & Carol

Panoramic view of the Illinois river from the trail

View upstream during our break along the Little Falls Loop trail segment

Katie after enjoying a dip and swim in the Illinois river

A Pitcairn cairn appears again along a trail we hiked

View of the upper portion of the Illinois River

Illinois River Little Falls Trail & more

We decided to once again venture out to one of those signs on the highway that you often ignore, which points out some vista or viewpoint.  This one along highway 199 indicated "Eight Dollar Mountain Botanical Wayside" turn right.  So we did.

But how did Eight Dollar Mountain get it's name you might ask......well some say it got the name from a nearby discovery of a gold nugget worth $8.00, while another story is that a man wore out a pair of shoes worth $8.00 walking around its base. Regardless of it's name origin, the area is beautiful and worth far more than $8.

About 7.5 miles of Eight Dollar Mountain Road is designated as the TJ Howell Botanical Drive.  We only drove a short distance before parking at a large area on the left side by the Jeffrey Pine Loop trailhead.  We then walked across the road to the Eight Dollar Mountain Botanical Wayside Boardwalk trail - the first of four trails we would hike but the winner for the longest trail name of the day.

This trail, as the name implies, is a boardwalk that stretches one-eighth of a mile out into a botanical area.  The main time for seeing the numerous flowers and plants would be late April till early June -- see the link for more details.  Nothing was in bloom for us today, but we definitely want to come back in a couple of months!  At the end of the boardwalk is a viewing area that overlooks a fen full of the California Pitcher Plant.  The boardwalk is handicap friendly, so if you know someone who enjoys flowers but is handicapped, this would make a nice destination during the blooming time.

The large fen area of California Pitcher Plants

A portion of the boardwalk trail

We then hiked back to the parking area across Eight Dollar Mountain Road and hiked the Jeffrey Pine Loop.

This trail took us through some wooded areas and eventually down near the Illinois river.  There are some side paths one can take to get to the river, but we stayed on the trail (for now).  The loop eventually was intersected by the Illinois River trail which heads downstream for one mile to the Little Falls Loop.  The trail gave us great views of a very beautiful river, and we did make a few side trips down to the river.  As a result, Katie made a few trips into the river.  There were also some side creeks and water seepage that ran across the trail, but none posed any hiking issues for us.

The Illinois River - view from one of our trail side trips

Trail view

One of the sandy beach areas along the river - view from trail

After our beautiful one mile hike downstream, the trail intersected the Little Falls Loop trail. This loop, just like the Jeffrey Pines loop, is just under a mile long.  We hiked the shorter half of the loop down to the river where we took a break on some rocks directly next to and above the water.  What a beautiful spot!!  The sun was out, blue sky with no clouds, the sound and sight of the river - we were lovin' it!!!

Upstream view from where we took a break.......

downstream view from where we took a break.

Carol enjoying the sun and river at our break area.

Afterwards we made our way around the rest of the loop to view the falls.  The Illinois River Little Falls are much like Rainie Falls in Galice or the Rogue Gorge area near Union Creek, not a typical waterfall but a narrowing of the river with small falls and very fast water.  It is a very, very beautiful area!!  If you only wanted to hike the Little Falls Loop, there is a parking area just above the loop on Eight Dollar Mountain  Road at the Little Falls Campground.  There were also numerous places along the river that had sand beaches which would make a great place for a summer day of swimming and fun.

Illinois River Little Falls

River area below the falls

 We completed the Little Falls Loop and hiked the river trail back to the Jeffrey Pine loop and completed that loop trail back to our car -- did you follow all of that?   These trails treated us to numerous river views, wildflowers (trilliums and western spring beauties), and beautiful woods in less than 5 miles of hiking, but provided us with over 3 hours of pure enjoyment.  All because we followed one of those highway signs that are often ignored.  Reminds us of the words of Robert Frost:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.


Trekking Together
Glenn & Carol

Illinois River Forks SP & Rough and Ready Botanical Wayside

Since we both had President's Day off from work and sunshine was in the forecast, we decided to hike at a couple of places that until a few weeks ago, we didn't even know existed.

We drove to Grants Pass and then headed south on Highway 199.  Just south of Cave Junction we turned onto Westside Road for a few miles till we arrived at the Illinois River Forks SP trailhead.  Illinois River Forks State Park is day use only and has an east side and a west side area - each separated by the east and west forks of the Illinois River.  The hiking trails are only accessed from the west side unless you want to swim across the river from the east side.  The trails are for hikers and horse riding, but we saw very little sign of recent use by horses.

Horse or Hiker?  Today we were all hikers!

We made our way across and down ravines on the Dogwood trail which took us to the confluence of the east and west forks.  We lost the trail here and could not find the picnic area along the river due to the heavy rains and flooding from a few weeks ago. We did take a few minutes to enjoy the view of the rivers and Katie took a minute to enjoy the water!

Where East meets West - the confluence of the East Fork and West Fork of the Illinois River

We then backtracked and hiked the River trail (a different trail along a small stream that was already dried up), Ridge trail and Power Line trail  -- their names tell you everything.  Many areas in the woods were covered with moss and ferns which provided green everywhere.  The trails were easy to follow and we only encountered a few trees across our trail which also made our hiking easier.

The largest tree across our trail today - no sweat!!

The link we included here for the State Park has all of the trails outlined and we would recommend taking a copy of this with you if you hike here.

After arriving back at the parking area, we drove back to Highway 199 and headed south for about a mile or so to the Rough and Ready Botanical Wayside.  We have driven by this area many times on the way to the coast, but it always looked like a dried out desert area and the creek was usually dry too.  Of course that was during the summer months.

The area has an incredible amount of plants and wildflowers, many of them rare. The best time for wildflower blooming is listed as early May through June, so we did not see many today.  The short well marked trail takes you from the parking area to a picnic table/viewpoint.  You can continue on along a less well marked trail past this area and eventually reach a dam.  We only hiked part way to the dam, then turned back to enjoy more of the viewpoint.

The well marked short trail to the picnic table/viewpoint area.

The not so well marked trail that continues to the dam.

On this day the Rough and Ready Creek was actually three creeks, each separated by an island of river rock that we wanted to take home for our gardens.  We didn't take any!  We did enjoy the views and hiked down to the confluence of the three creeks.  Katie enjoyed the water again!

Where the Rough and Ready creeks become one creek again.

Looking upstream along one of the Rough and Ready creeks 

Is this a Pitcairn Cairn???

We enjoyed hiking today and want to say "thank you" to George, Abe and all the other presidents - you made our day!

Trekking Together
Glenn and Carol