Service Roads--My Camping Trip in the Umpqua Forest/High Cascades

My Camping Trip in the Umpqua Forest/High Cascades

 

Now, let me first remind my readers—both of you—I get lost, a lot.

But this trip was definitely off the map from my normal getting lost. Mainly because we didn’t even have a map. At least not at first.

I had a friend come out from Chicago for a week and we hatched a plan to go car camping. A former workmate at the bike shop loaned us his car. A white Volvo that looked great parked in a driveway, but awfully small tootling down forest roads beneath a canopy of giant cedars and spruces. But, I’ll get to that in a moment.

Suffice it to say, my friend wasn’t much better with directions.

After riding bikes around Lake Dorena and snapping photos at the 11 or so covered bridges along the route, we loaded the bikes up and rode into the Umpqua National Forest, where blue skies turned into patchwork beneath the thick foliage. I was surprised that the sun set at 7 instead of 9 or 10 at night. But, I’ll get to that. We traveled the little divided blacktop until it turned into a lane, until it became wide enough for a single car. Until we saw no more cars. Just us, a little Volvo, 2 bikes, 2 girls, one in a bucket hat. No map.

I thought I could drive from memory the route we took in December to get to a certain waterfalls. Except I couldn’t remember the name of the falls and there are so MANY waterfalls with names not ringing a bell and many more forks then I recalled. Then there wad the fact, I might have fallen asleep either on the way there or the way home from hiking taht it would be highly unlikely for me to remember anything. Basically I was whiffing it. Until—

We finally stopped at 6 pm. Instinct told us that it would be nightfall soon and maybe we ought to turn around, since we didn’t know where we were aka LOST. As I did a 180 on the narrow forest road, we noticed a lone abandoned fire ring on one side and upon further inspection a flat spot next to a bubbling creek. This seemed good for the night.

We stopped, set up lawn chairs and gathered firewood. We built a fire and set up tents. We heated up a wonderful peanut stew with chickpeas and sopped it up with honey/wheat bread. Then it started to rain.

Next day—stay tuned.