North Umpqua Trip, 2003
This year, we traveled again to Oregon and it's famed North Umpqua River. One big difference in this year's trip - my wife, Susan, joined my Dad and I.
Our first memorable stop was again the Rogue River Gorge. Seeing all of that water go through a small gorge is simply amazing. Just further north from there, we stopped to fish a small section of the river for a couple of hours. There were a few other fisher-people on the river, but no one doing any catching. Pop and I decided to change that. We decided to fish a small bend in the river, where the opposite bank had the deep water and was over-grown with bushes and trees. Standing about 40 feet apart, we both hooked up a couple of times and landed some very nice Rogue River Rainbows. My wife tried her luck at fishing, but didn't have any luck in catching.
From there, we drove up to Steamboat Inn and got settled in. Then we drove north about an hour to visit some family in Eugene. We had a pleasant afternoon's visit, seeing some family that I hadn't seen in several years. It was Susan's first time in meeting them and was a pleasure for us all.
We fished most of the rest of the time, with only 3 exceptions:
Crater Lake is truly spectacular and worth every bit of the trip. It is the United States deepest (1,932 feet) land-locked lake. Frequently, in the summer you still can't drive all the way around the rim......there's still too much snow. Crater Lake has the fortunate pleasure of having one of the heaviest snow falls of the country - it averages 533 inches per year - that's 44.4 feet per year. I've been all around the western US and this is one of the most incredible sights you can see. Wizard Island, Sun Notch, Castle Rock and the Phantom Ship are just a few of the incredible sights to see while you're there.
Twin Lakes are located in the mountains above the North Umpqua River. On the dirt road to Marster's Bridge, you'll see the turn for Twin Lakes - 10 miles. 10 miles doesn't sound very far, but on a some-what rough dirt road going from 1500 feet up to around 5000 feet, it took longer than expected. Once you get to the Twin Lakes parking area - a very wide spot in the road - you discover that there's a 1.25 mile hike to the lakes, this is just a trailhead. We hiked the trail to both lakes and were not sorry, at all. It was yet another scenic trail leading to total natural beauty.
Fall Creek Falls is very spectacular in its own right. It's right off of the North Umpqua Highway and short hike to quite a view. The Falls Creek Falls pictures will be mixed in with the North Umpqua pictures, Crater Lake and Twin Lakes will be separate.
You'll notice some prefixes on the picture names, this is just to help me keep them separated and in order. If you checked a map, you could (might) find all of these areas. My key:
Please Enjoy!! North Umpqua Pics Home