July 21-24, 2011 – Upper Rogue River and Crater Lake National Park (continued)

Thursday morning we hiked a short trail along the Upper Rogue River to Pearsony Falls.

We then hiked to the Avenue of Giant Boulders, created the same time as Crater Lake, 7,700 years ago.  When the volcano erupted it blew huge, room sized boulders some 20 miles and deposited them here along the Upper Rogue River.

We enjoyed hiking among these huge boulders.

We did another hike along the Upper Rogue River to two beautiful waterfalls.  The first was Mill Creek Falls.

Just down the trail a short distance was even more spectacular Barr Creek Falls.

We enjoyed these hikes and it was good to get the dogs out on a trail again. 

After our hikes we took a short drive to Flounce Rock, a viewpoint where you can see the Pacific Coast Range and Mount Shasta.

We also got a great view of Lost Creek Reservoir.

We ate a picnic lunch here and enjoyed the beautiful wildflowers.

When we got back to the RV Park later in the afternoon, Rex gave the dogs much needed bathes.

Friday, July 22^nd, was dog grooming day, both dogs got haircuts.  Now they both look better and smell much nicer.  Cody finished his Prednisone a few days ago and his red, itchy chest and belly have cleared up.  We are keeping our fingers crossed that it does not come back again.

 After lunch we took the kayaks on the Upper Rogue River.

Oops – wrong picture!!  No, we did not kayak on this section of the Upper Rogue. 

We found a much calmer section just down from our RV Park.  We put the kayaks in at Prospect Lake and paddled to the end of the lake and up the Upper Rogue until we hit rapids that were too strong to make upstream progress.

We turned around at the rapids and drifted easily downstream.  Rex found this log hanging out over the river and when he paddled to it he found it was home to a number of snakes.  It was very interesting but Nancy kept her distance.

Momma and baby Red Breasted Merganser were not too happy that we were in their territory.

We had a great time but were very tired by the time we got back to the dam.  Paddling upstream is not as easy as it looks but floating back downstream was great.

Saturday afternoon we drove to Butte Falls, a beautiful waterfall that is not very tall but is wide.  Here are also some foundations here from an old mill.

We stopped in the town of Butte Falls and had huckleberry cheesecake ice cream cones – Mmm were they good!  This area is beautiful and we had a great drive.

We heard that the Rim Drive at Crater Lake National Park is now open all the way around the lake so we headed back on Sunday morning to see what we missed on Wednesday.  We started on the East Rim Drive and drove to the Pinnacles Overlook.  The pinnacles are fumaroles formed when Mt. Mazama erupted.

Many of these fossil fumaroles are hollow.

Rex enjoying the sunshine, beautiful blue lake and trying to stay away from the mosquitoes.

This formation called Pumice Castle is made of layers of pumice and other rocks coughed up by Mt. Mazama – some so hot they welded together.

Mt. Thielsen, the remains of another volcano, viewed from Crater Lake.

We just can’t believe how incredibly blue the water is.  What a beautiful National Park.

We left the park and drove most of the Rogue-Umpqua Scenic Byway and stopped at several waterfalls.   Our first stop was Clearwater Falls.

We ate a picnic lunch by Whitehorse Falls.

After lunch we hiked a steep, difficult trail to Watson Falls.  We were really tired by the time we got to the end of the trail but this beautiful waterfall was well worth it.

Another steep climb to Toketee Falls – it was not as difficult as there were stairs on this trail.  The North Umpqua River plunges 40 feet over a hidden ledge into a secluded cavity; then suddenly plummets another 80 feet into a large plunge pool.  This was the most spectacular waterfall we saw today.   Even Camille and Cody were tired when we got done with these hikes.

We have really enjoyed our time here seeing the Upper Rogue and Umpqua Rivers and were blown away by beautiful Crater Lake National Park.