I was also making a concerted effort to spend time inland rather than just the coast because otherwise every picture would be some version of “rocks in water” and that gets tedious even for me. I had taken the time the night before to look at waterfall trails in the area, and realized with sadness that the trail I wanted to do had a 10 mile dirt road approach that other users on AllTrails said was technically doable without a 4WD or AWD car, but super sketchy. I was in a Mazda3 rental car, which meant I had to pivot to something with a safer route. I found Elk Creek Falls somewhere deep in the Rogue River - Siskiyou National Forest and figured even if the trail itself wasn’t much, the drive out there might be nice. And the drive did deliver.
I stopped just 30 yards down from a bunch of road work and got out of my car to take pictures, much to the bafflement and amusement of the gentlemen doing repairs to the eletrical lines.
As I got further inland, the morning fog was so thick that it rendered the landscape magical and mysterious, but also meant that stopping to take pictures was dangerous with the lack of visibility, so I mostly kept driving and marveling at the way the rolling hills and farmland would melt away and disappear.
I don’t often risk deviating from my route when I’m driving deep in the forest because it resets my GPS, and then I’m stuck without any navigation to my original destination, but I was curious enough as I was driving along the river that I made the decision to pull over and take a walk. Did I nearly get my car stuck in the “parking area” because the ground was soft and uneven? Yes, but I wouldn’t realize that until after I got back to my car.
It did take quite a while to pick up enough of a shred of cell signal to get navigation again, and in the meantime, I just drove semi-aimlessly down the road trying to remember if it said 5 miles to the next turn or 15 miles. The sky started to clear, and the fog was slowly getting burned off by the sun creeping its way into the valleys.
When I got to the trailhead, I could tell it was going to be a good time. The forest was thick with moss covered trees, dripping green and lush and dark. The road led further into the woods like a beckoning fairytale, and the whole thing felt like a dream.
Don’t you just want to find out what’s around the corner?
The sign at the trailhead indicated it was 0.7 miles to the waterfall, but the path ended abruptly after about half that distance. It looked as though there was a trail that went up to the top of the rocks, but it very quickly turned into a muddy scramble that didn’t at all appear to be a real trail but just a thing some people tried to do. I honestly never did figure it out.
The glorious chaos of PNW forests.
Since that trail was essentially a bust (even the waterfall was underwhelming), and there was another trail there called “Big Tree,” I figured, okay, I’ll bite, show me the big tree. It claimed to be 3 miles. Now, was that round trip, one direction, or not even accurate, I had no idea. I had no cell signal to look for it in AllTrails, and I hadn’t downloaded any other maps in the area. Emboldened by the bushwhacking experience of the day before, I felt confident that whatever the trail threw at me, I could handle it.
What it threw at me was 950ft of elevation gain in a half mile. Just endless switchbacks up a very steep mountain. The forest was beautiful, which made up for the brutal ascent, but I was glad when it evened out a little.
I had been happily hiking through the forest for quite a while, enjoying the solitude and silence… until I happened upon some scat on the trail. Now, I didn’t know if it was bear scat or some other wild animal, but I was suddenly reminded that I was in bear country, and I was being very quiet and bears do not like surprises. Of course I did the “heeeey bear!” call out, and I think that woke up the entire forest. At least 3 different varieties of birds started calling back, and there was movement all around me. Probably a whole bunch of them were enjoying a nice mid-morning nap when I disturbed them.
Sadly, I never did find the “big tree,” but at least the descent wasn’t as bad as the way up.
After getting back to the car, I drove down the beautiful winding roads out of the woods, stopping briefly at a picnic area because they had bathrooms. I do need to shout out the Oregon parks system for having vault toilets at many of their trailheads, even in some pretty remote areas. When you’re away from your hotel for the whole day, those things come in real handy.
I had some time to kill and the weather was deeply uninteresting the closer I got back to the coast. I stopped into Winchester Bay and got ice cream from a local creamery. Hung out on the boardwalk. Eventually, I decided to take a drive out to the Oregon Dunes and do one of the more popular hikes.
“Hike” is maybe not the right word for it. I think “lost in the dunes like you’ve accidentally stepped into a desert” is more accurate. But hey, at least once I got past the forested section in the beginning, the sky cleared up a bit, and I was fortified for the journey with lots of ice cream.
I was told there’s an ocean somewhere out there, past the dunes.
Am I going the right way, or were they lost, too?
I cannot emphasize how much sand I poured out of my shoes. Twice. The pictures do not do it justice at all, but the experience was very cool. Just wear sandals, or something else that’s porous. While I started out on the trail with a few other groups of people, once I was out on the dunes, I was completely and utterly alone. I had visibility for miles in every direction, and not another living soul. I came away with a newfound respect for people who live in the vast deserts of this world. It’s a very different kind of “alone” than being in the woods.
