Umpqua River Oregon

Journey to a Land of Water Wind and Fire

A Transition: Traveling up the Umpqua River

We had planned on spending the night with J. at his place near Roseburg OR and so we left Bandon OR after dinner. Thus began our journey to Crater Lake National Park.

The first part of our journey was through a beautiful, albeit sparcely settled country, the sign says it all. And yes, it leads to the town of . . .Remote Oregon. Probably its most noteworthy contribution came when William Least Heat-Moon mentioned it in his travelogue "Blue Highways."

We also passed a Covered Bridge near Remote. Being from West Virginia, we are used to seeing covered bridges. However, they are a rarity west of the Mississippi River, with one state, Oregon, being the exception. While I had not intentionally planned to stop at any of their bridges, since this one, the Sandy Creek Bridge, was right along our route of travel, we stopped for the obligatory Photo Op.

The next morning we set off up the Umpqua River valley. For the first part, it was mostly farming and small towns. The day was overcast, as the previous evening had been. And as we traveled along, we saw signs indicating that they were having fires in the area. I am sure that at least part of the "overcast" that we were driving through was, in reality, smoke from the fires (at times it certainly smelled that way).

We made it a point to stop at a place where, the guidebooks all claimed "Two Rivers Collide." They had talked about how spectacular the place was etc. etc. etc. Unfortunately, we were there in the "low water" season. Thus the view was not quite what we had been expecting.

J. had talked about all the waterfalls along this highway and had encouraged us to see a few of them. But again, this being "low water season" those few we did see, were mostly just whitewater.

One exception to this, however, was the Clearwater River Falls. We stopped there and had a picnic lunch. Afterwards we walked around a bit to see the falls. They were pretty, but again, not anything spectacular, in our humble opinion.

We finally broke out of the Umpqua River Valley and found ourselves at Diamond Lake. After a brief stop at an overlook, we turned south, and the next phase of our Journey, Crater Lake National Park.