Greg and I spent Memorial Day weekend in southern Oregon. The weather promised to be cloudy for part of the weekend, so we decided to visit some waterfalls.
Sunday’s forecast called for overcast skies all day in the mountains, but that proved to not be true. The sun was out until about 2:00, which just goes to show that you can’t trust weather forecasters. Shooting Warm Springs Falls was challenging in the sunlight, but it was a pleasure to see. Very nice waterfall.
We killed time elsewhere waiting for the clouds before visiting Lemolo Falls. As the crow flies it is very close to Warm Springs Falls, but as the car drives it is most definitely not. At least not the way we went. (You can also get a view of this waterfall from a trail on the other side of the river.) We hiked down down down down an old logging road and then on a trail along the creek before reaching this stunning waterfall. Beautiful. Took awhile to climb back up up up up that hill, though!
Having lost many hours waiting for the right photography conditions, we started making our way back to Medford, stopping at a few waterfalls along the way. National Creek Falls isn’t too far off of Highway 230 and is a short hike. The view from the near side of the creek is partially obstructed, so we had to shimmy and crawl over a log jam just downstream from the falls so we could get a good view. This turned out to be highly amusing in both directions!
Our last stop of the day was in Prospect, where there’s a cluster of waterfalls. Mill Creek Falls is in a park there and thunders down into the river below.
As does nearby Barr Creek Falls.
At Pearsony Falls I used the bathroom while Greg hiked ahead. I hiked on to meet him, but at a trail junction with a vague sign, I went the way I thought I was supposed to go. The waterfall was only supposed to be 0.2 mile from the car, but after walking about that far and not seeing Greg or hearing a waterfall, I went back to the car. When I didn’t show up at the falls, I scared the crap out of Greg, who was imagining the worst (it didn’t help that we were listening to a Phillip Margolin murder mystery in the car). I HAD been on the right trail and just hadn’t gone far enough, I guess.
Sunday was overcast and was therefore a whirwind of waterfalls. We drove back up Highway 230 and then west on Highway 138 to hit all the waterfalls along there.
Clearwater Falls
Whitehorse Falls
Before our trip, I was thrilled to learn that the Toketee Falls trail had just reopened. The walkway that had been built into the steep hillside had been severely damaged in a winter storm a few years ago. The Forest Service has taken down the photos of the damage, but you can see the same photos on this site. And now the spiffy new walkway and platform are in place. Hooray!
Watson Falls is pretty amazing. It reminded me a bit of Elowah Falls.
We drove up the Little River to hit as many waterfalls up there as we could before we ran out of time/light. We drove muddy roads and hiked a short distance in the pouring rain to reach lovely Grotto Falls.
There was a lot of smoke in the air around Grotto Falls but we couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. When Greg went behind the falls to find the geocache there, he discovered a campfire that hadn’t been put out. Jeez people! Even if’s a rainy day you still put out your campfire!
We drove and drove and drove up to Lake in the Woods Campground and hiked down to Hemlock Falls.
I was pretty much out of energy at this point, especially since we had to hike uphill to get back to the car from Hemlock. It was 6:30, time for dinner, and we were hours from civilization and a hot meal. I killed time for an hour while Greg went down to Yakso Falls. I just didn’t have any more hiking in me. When I later saw his photos, I wished I had gone there instead of Hemlock.
While I was waiting, though, I got some nice shots of Lake in the Woods. It’s not a remarkable lake, but in the calm of the evening it made for some nice reflection shots.
And then we began the long drive home, eating dinner in Roseburg around 9:00 and falling into bed in Portland around 1 a.m. Whew!
