July, 2009
A trip by Awanna and Daniel into southern Oregon, covering just five days in July.
California
A rest stop on CA-299 with a nice view of Mt. Shasta.
McArthur-Barney Falls Memorial State Park is just a few miles north of the highway. The falls are there year-round even though the upstream river bed is sometimes dry during summer. It's an easy walk (albeit with dozens of steps near the top) down to the bottom of the falls on a paved trail.
Pit River.
Surprise Valley is in the far northeast corner of California. It was once on the route of some of the pioneer trails to Oregon and California.
Cedarville, California
The old Ft. Bidwell school hasn't been used for a long time.
Oregon
Considering its size, Plush, Oregon has a nice park for the few travelers driving though. Considering that there is only one road into town that is paved, they probably don't get much traffic.
Before the road reaches the Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge the pavement ends. There are no paved roads within the park.
We would first drive four miles to the hot springs. After that, we'd reverse direction, and drive east to Frenchglen.
The water is pretty warm, but not hot.
The empty road to Frenchglen. Needless to say, there was no reason to pull to the side when stopping for a photograph.
At the east border of the park. The speed limit throughout the park is 40 mph. Considering the washboard surface of some sections of the road you wouldn't really want to go much faster.
We had stopped at the Kam Wah Chung & Co. Museum visitor center on an earlier trip, but were not able to tour the store. We were still too early on this trip.
John Day River.
There are three units of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. We would be visiting Sheep Rock and Clarno.
The park headquarters is at Sheep Rock.
The pens on the left are "bonding pens" to allow the newborns to bond with their mother before being released with the flock.
A mechanical shearing drive system, and the frame used to hold the wool sacks during filling.
The Clarno Unit.
A trail takes you to the base of the bluffs for a closer view of a natural arch, and no farther.
Antelope, Oregon.
The Aufderheide Memorial Drive (FR-19) runs from Rainbow (on OR-126) to Westfir and is often spoken of as being one of the best motorcycle roads in Oregon.
We hiked up the Grasshopper trail which leads into a wilderness area. This is an area worth returning to.
The Applegate trail was intended to join the Oregon Trail with the California Trail, and avoid some of the more difficult parts of both. While driving south (mostly following the route), we stopped at three museums dedicated to the trail. All were closed.
Oregon Caves National Monument isn't too far off the highway (if you are a crow) but, it takes time to drive the rather twisty road to the park. We walked part of a trail, but did not tour the caves.
California
The Smith River route (CA-199) is one of the prettiest ways to enter California.
Redwood National Park consists of a number of separate areas, and is effectively combined with the California State Redwood parks (they are cooperatively-managed by the National Park Service and the California Department of Parks). We stopped at the Redwood Creek area, south of Orick.
This very nice trail extends about eight miles to "Tall Tree Grove." We would only walk about a mile and a half before turning back.
Distance driven: 1,400 miles.