A Whole Month of Family Time in Myrtle Creek, OR

Pardon our blog silence for the past month, we've been enjoying uninterrupted family time in Myrtle Creek, OR. Having visited here many times before, it is kind of a second home for us (after our former home town, San Diego) so photography sessions were few and one post will easily cover the month.

Our time has been well spent helping Chantal and James (my daughter and son in law) with yard work, lots of family meals together, a week long visit with my dad as he passed through the area and hiking old favorites and some new trails too. We discovered how bountiful fresh fruit is at this time of year at a couple of terrific U-pick farms.

View of the South Umpqua river from our backyard at On the River RV Park.

Merganzer mama and her brood.

When we hike the steep hills behind the RV park, we share the trails with a herd of Scottish Highlander cattle.

Drive or walk anywhere in SW Oregon and you are liable to see deer or turkeys.
These guys are flirting with trespassing...

Chantal and I fell in love with this succulent fountain on one of our many trips to find plants
 for a flower bed we redesigned.

Though we've stayed in the Roseburg, OR area many times before, we'd never visited any of the U-pick farms, though often that's because it was the wrong time of year. From now on, we will always check to see what's available because this area has prime fruit and vegetable growing conditions and numerous places to pick. Kruse Farms and Brosi Sugar Tree Farms both have multiple picking sites as well as excellent farm stands.

Cherry picking!

Bountiful, delicious Queen Anne cherries.

We picked blueberries at least three times, different varieties each time.

The North Umpqua river enters Roseburg from the east, flowing out of the Cascade Range along highway 138. The North Umpqua Trail system has about 70 continuous miles of trail along the river, plus there are numerous waterfalls along this corridor as well. One day during my dad's visit we hiked to three of the falls, unfortunately they had to be speedy hikes due to the heavy mosquito population and our lack of repellent!

Susan Creek Falls

Fall Creek Falls

On a super hot day we watched a lumberjack contest at Backside Brewery. We were fortunate to have covered seating on this 100 degree day, I felt sorry for the folks competing!

Chopping their way up two levels, the first one to chop off the top block wins.

Three slices (down/up/down) within six inches, must end up with three complete discs.

We found a couple of new places to hike, one being Cooper Creek Reservoir in Sutherlin, OR. There is a lovely trail along the west side of the lake and we continued on the road to circle the lake for a nice six mile hike.

There must be thousands of deer in rural Oregon...

This guy was one of several we saw feasting on a fawn just off the trail.

This fellow is fishing along the edge of a massive field of water lilies.

We hiked an old favorite, North Bank Habitat Management Area. The views are to die for, and there's always a chance you might see a bear!

The trails are wide mowed paths up and over golden hills.

Forested hills and green valleys as far as the eye can see.

A surprise in the deep forest.

We found another new-to-us trail system in Mildred Kanipe Memorial Park. Located several miles east of charming Oakdale, OR, the park boasts over 1,000 acres of history, oak and pine forests, lovely picnic grounds, horse campsites, at least 10 miles of multi-use trails and peacocks!

As soon as we arrived we could hear the peacocks distinctive calls!

We hiked rolling hills of grasses and oak forests...

to lush pine forests covered with ferns.

We shared our lunch with this inquisitive fellow.

There was more berry picking...the marion berries were fabulous at Brosi Sugar Tree Farm.

Brosi also had bountiful apricots...we picked there twice!

We got to enjoy a couple of summer concerts.

The lovely concert venue at Myrtle Creek's Millsite Park.

We saw the excellent Dirty Bourbon River Show at Winston's Riverbend Park.

We also happened to be in town for Roseburg's annual Graffiti Week. Lots of gorgeous old cars on display.

Shiny!

Hans reminiscing about his first car.

Our final hike up the mountain behind the RV park netted us the first ripe blackberries of the season as well as a very funny sight...one of the Scottish Highlanders munching lily pads in the stock pond.

Today we're off to the coast! We're looking forward to cooler temps and lots of beach time over the next seven weeks.

Revisiting a Favorite: Ashland, OR

We've stayed in Ashland, OR twice before and loved every minute of our time in this beautiful area just a few miles north of the California border (2013, 2014). This past week was no exception. Once again we stayed at Emigrant Lake County Park and enjoyed seeing the lake almost full; we've always stayed here in the fall when the lake is very low due to summer irrigation needs. (My campground review.)

We started our week off right with happy hour at Caldera Brewing, just a couple miles down the road from the county park.

Tasty brews at Caldera!

Lithia Park is always on our "must see" list when we visit Ashland. We just missed a riot of rhododendron blooms, but the creek and the gorgeous plantings in this 100 acre park are always a delight.  The park is especially stunning in the fall.

Not even a cold, wet morning could keep us away from Lithia Park.

So many lovely scenes in the Japanese Garden.

Thanks to former Ashlanders' Laurel and Eric for the tip on the Jacksonville Woodlands Trails. We got in a nice five mile hike through forested, rolling terrain, then a walk through the sweet town of Jacksonville.

Many of the forests in SW Oregon are full of madrone trees and lots of poison oak.
This particular Madrone was the largest we've ever seen!

Jacksonville is a historic tourist town, with some beautiful old buildings and a variety of nice shops to browse.

Historic Jacksonville, OR.

There's a large network of trails that can be hiked right from Ashland. The Oredson-Todd Woods Trails begin in a neighborhood on the south end of town and climb, often steeply, the lushly forested hillsides.

I think this is the largest mushroom we've ever seen!

This beauty posed just for us!

Living yard art.

Our most interesting hike of the week was a section of the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT). Starting at Little Hyatt Reservoir about 15 miles from our RV park, we hiked south on the PCT and added on the Green Springs Mountain Loop for a total of about 7 miles (map). The route took us through forests of pine and oak with scatterings of spring flowers and a couple of incredible view sites.

On the PCT bridge over Keene Creek as it leaves Little Hyatt Reservoir.

The forest was full of spring flowers including masses of these sweet little beauties.

Though most of the trail was through lush forest, a couple of times we broke out to long distance views of Mt Ashland, and Emigrant Lake.

There were some really exquisite flowers blooming at this time of year!

On the drive home we had an exceptional view of 9,495 ft tall Mt McLoughlin over Hyatt Prairie Reservoir.

We've moved on to Myrtle Creek for a month of family time on the banks of the South Umpqua River.

Our back yard view for the next month.

Hiking 10,000 Year Old Black Butte

Due west of Mt Shasta and right next to Interstate 5 stands Black Butte. 10,000 years ago a volcanic eruption caused a crater where Black Butte now stands. Lava the consistency of toothpaste began oozing from the vent, and, through a series of four of these oozing eruptions, ultimately formed the 6,325 ft high plug dome that is Black Butte.

Black Butte viewed from the south along I-5.

The trail up Black Butte gains 1,875 feet over 2.5 miles, crossing the oldest eruption and the second eruption. Fortunately the incline is never too steep, the hardest part about this trail is how rocky it is, sometimes treacherously so. We were glad we had our trekking poles for stability on both large boulders and loose scree.

Black Butte viewed from the east.

The trail head is reached via a series of old logging roads with few signs, good directions are a must. The roads are in okay shape, just a few large potholes and one rutted section, a passenger car should be able to make it, very carefully.

The trail starts climbing through forest on the NE side of the butte and soon breaks out onto intermittent talus covered slopes. We were glad we'd waited for a cloudy day with cooler temps to make this trek.

A couple of lenticular clouds forming over Mt Shasta.

Those with a fear of heights should probably avoid this trail...the exposure is much worse than this, higher up.

Vibrant penstemon was a bright spot in an otherwise gray morning.

The dogwood were blooming too.

Coming around to the west side of the butte we were treated to views of the Eddy Range, residential areas of Mt Shasta City and several lava plugs along the north side of the main butte.

Looking straight up from the trail.

The trail clearly passed from one eruption to another and, as we climbed the north face of the main butte,
became much rockier. Care had to be taken with every single step.
Here, we are looking east as Mt Shasta starts to come back into view.

Looking back west towards Mt Eddy.

The summit is still quite a ways above us.

One must stop to appreciate the views, otherwise eyes on the trail at all times!

About half a mile or so from the summit the trail crosses a very loose scree field with steep and seemingly endless drops.
Here is a shot of a gabion retaining wall that has slipped. We had to work our way around it very carefully...it was even harder coming back down the mountain!

We made it!
It was pretty windy and cool on top so we didn't stay long.

I'm happy because I'm almost finished with the hard parts!

This was an amazing hike...challenging, with drop dead gorgeous views. We're glad to be able to say we did it but I don't know that we'd do it again...there were some very treacherous spots where one wrong move could prove disastrous. What an experience!

We finished our day with happy hour at the home of new friends Brice and Elaine and saw this lovely lenticular cloud over Mt Shasta. A fitting end to a wonderful week in the shadow of a great mountain.