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The Daily Bucket: Down the Rogue River [1]

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Date: 2022-07-05

Day 3 (May 16, 2022) began with a hearty breakfast at Morrison’s. All 14 of us booked on this trip packed ourselves along with our three guides into two vans. It was a short few miles to the put-in at the prophetically named Grave Creek boat ramp, but only if you believe in prophesies. At the boat ramp, the three guides busied themselves with preparing and loading the three rafts they would ride down the river while pointing out where the trail began for us. “There’s the trail, folks.” We would hike with minimal daypacks while the rest of our worldly belongings would float downriver with the guides to meet us at our destination for the night. Nine miles we would hike for the day.

Grave Creek boat ramp

For safety, the hiking group was issued two walkie-talkies, one for the leading fast hiker and the other for the tail end sweeper. This way, the hikers could do regular safety check-ins with the guides as they floated downriver. For some reason, the lead guide handed me one of the radios as the tail-end sweeper. Did I look like a slow hiker? Anyway, this worked well since this gave me an opportunity to dawdle behind and take pictures without slowing anyone down. As it turned out, no surprise to myself, I often easily caught up with the actual slow hiker.

Trail sometimes a little sketchy, but not too bad overall.

Many beautiful little streams to cross

Our three guides floating downriver, bearing our luggage

The Rogue River cuts through the Siskiyou Mountains in a v-shaped canyon bounded by steep, forested slopes. It’s wild rugged country. The Klamath-Siskiyou region of southwestern Oregon-northwestern California is an area of incredible biodiversity with lifeforms found in no other place on earth. Our selected timeframe to hike through it was perfect; late spring with wildflowers blooming and before the onset of southern Oregon summer heat.

Let’s kick off with some nature. I was seriously blown away by the endemics I found. My favorite was the Del Norte County Iris (Iris innominata). Imagine a plant whose range is so small that it’s named after a county.

Del Norte County Iris (Iris innominata)

Del Norte County Iris (Iris innominata). As we advanced downriver, we saw more of this color variation. Del Norte County Iris is known to hybridize with other irises.

Typical habitat for Del Norte County Iris.

Distribution of Del Norte County Iris which pretty much delineates the Klamath-Siskiyou ecoregion.

Henderson’s Triteleia (Triteleia hendersonii) is another cool endemic I came across.

Henderson’s Triteleia (Triteleia hendersonii)

Henderson’s Triteleia (Triteleia hendersonii)

Distribution of Henderson’s Triteleia

Just a few more wildflowers with wider distribution through the west.

Tolmie's Pussy Ears (Calochortus tolmiei). This “Mariposa Lily” (Calochortus) has a wider distribution along the Coast Ranges of Oregon and California. The Calochortus genus is a truly western genus with over one hundred species distributed across the western US with no occurrences east of the Rockies.

Common Madia (Madia elegans)

Narrowleaf Mule-Ears (Wyethia angustifolia)

Nuttall's Larkspur (Delphinium nuttallianum)

Red Larkspur (Delphinium nudicaule)

Ookow (Dichelostemma congestum)

White Brodiaea (Triteleia hyacinthina). This resembles Henderson’s Triteleia (Triteleia hendersonii) above, same genus, but wider distribution.

Slender Clarkia (Clarkia gracilis)

Silver Lupine (Lupinus albifrons)

This is likely Wavyleaf Paintbrush (Castilleja applegatei), but I’m not positive.

The guru of paintbrushes is Mark Egger. Check out his iNaturalist profile and his flickr pages.

Have you had enough wildflowers? How about a fern? There were several different ferns I saw but this one is a favorite of mine. It’s big, bold, and beautiful.

Giant Chain Fern (Woodwardia fimbriata)

How about some critters?

Black-throated Gray Warbler (Setophaga nigrescens). This turned out to be the only decent bird photo I could get. Of course, we saw a few other birds. Lots of Canada Geese in the river and a few Osprey.

Some reptiles, but surprisingly no rattlesnakes. The western fence lizards were abundant, aka “bluebellies” for the brilliant blue undersides of the male lizards.

Western Fence Lizard (Sceloporus occidentalis)

Western Fence Lizard (Sceloporus occidentalis)

Insects, too.

Yellow-faced Bumble Bee (Bombus vosnesenskii). The most common bumblebee west of the Pacific Crest. On Virgate Scorpionweed (Phacelia heterophylla)

Persius Duskywing (Erynnis persius) on Western Wallflower (Erysimum capitatum). There were many of these duskywing skippers flying about. This is an excellent field guide: Butterflies of the Pacific Northwest

Every day of the four-day trip there was a lunch stop along the river.

Our three guides preparing lunch (Adam, Brett, Micah)

Whiskey Creek. We crossed many of these side creeks, some larger like this one, others down to tiny brooklets. The larger creeks were bridged.

A quarter mile side trail up Whiskey Creek led to the historic Whiskey Creek Cabin.

Whiskey Creek Cabin

Whiskey Creek Cabin

Around the far bend in the river was the destination for the first night — Black Bar Lodge

Benchmark

From here, a side trail led down to the river where we were ferried across to the lodge.

Micah, one of our guides, was in charge of ferrying us across the river to the lodge on the opposite bank.

Black Bar Lodge

Black Bar Lodge, meals served country style

Cabin C, our place for the night.

It was so nice to finally reach Black Bar Lodge, take a hot shower, and put on clean clothes. We had time to socialize and meet our fellow travelers. They were all interesting and accomplished people. I had my doubts about the group of four young women, who I initially nicknamed the “giggle girls.” But they included a doctor (Ob-Gyn), a psychologist, a geologist (PhD, runs a seismic network), and another who was at least the funniest of the group. They were all college classmates. They also brought nine bottles of wine with them that they happily shared. Others in the group all had interesting lives and professions. So, the conversations around dinner and breakfast were lively and engaging.

Black Bar Lodge was the first of three lodges where we would stay as we journeyed down the Rogue River. No internet connection and the generator-supplied power shut off at 10 pm. For a few days, life was good, I mean really good.

Upcoming travelogues on subsequent days (work-in-progress, subject to change):

Day 4 — The big 14 mile day and Zane Gray

Day 5 — Paradise found

Days 6 and 7 — Out to the Oregon Coast and Astoria

Day 8 — Washington Coast and Port Angeles

Day 9 — Dungeness Spit

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/7/5/2107361/-The-Daily-Bucket-Down-the-Rogue-River-Day-3-Travelogue

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