May 22…. Go Rogue

We spent the day exploring the Rogue River valley nearby. Clear cold rushing water through a beautiful forest. We are near Prospect Oregon and it feels like we are half way to the middle of nowhere.

Prospect is a town. Kind of. A tiny market with a gas pump. A few houses. A small B&B with a dining room. Not a lot to it. The closest town that has much of anything is about 40 minutes away.

So much of this area was created as remnants of volcanic activity, hundreds or thousands of years ago. Lava flows, lava tubes, damming up the rivers and creeks, making lakes and waterfalls. Just up the highway, we visited the Rogue Gorge Overlook. The Rogue River drops into a narrow deep cut in the land, as little as 20 feet wide in places but 50-60 feet deep. Water boiling and foaming and crashing down at the bottom, I’m pretty sure I don’t want to swim it. And since it all comes from recently melted snow, I KNOW I don’t want to swim in it.

Further down stream, there’s a place where the Rogue goes underground, forming what is sometimes a natural bridge.

The river hits an old lava tube, like the one we hiked the other day, disappearing into the ground for about 200 feet and popping back up from the earth to resume its journey to the Pacific Ocean. Today, with all the snow melting at higher elevations, the water doesn’t completely go underground but continues a diminished flow on the surface. It’s still a sight to see. A roaring river suddenly drops off to a small stream and then boils out of the ground to go raging down the way. Pictures just can’t capture it.

Also near Prospect is a part of the river called Avenue of the Boulders. The river drops off a ledge and rushes through a set of giant boulders.

Hiking through the forests, along this river, the sounds of birds and running water in the background. So very different from our last month or so when everything was bone dry and the only green were some weeds or a bit of moss under a rock.

Trees are enormous here, Susy is in her element again.

Hard to see in that last pic, but those pinecones are almost a foot long. 😮

Susy is after me to buy some wet suits so we can get in the river and search for rocks. If she can do that, rocks and trees and waterfalls all at the same time, she’ll be in heaven. Two out of three ain’t bad, right??