Oregon Hikers

Last year we hiked the 40 mi long Lower Rogue River trail from Grave Creek to Foster Bar - amazing trip! (TR). This year we have plans to raft the river - which should also be amazing but we won't have to carry anything! The main Rogue Trail runs along the N side of the river while the much shorter, but equally scenic, Rainie Falls trail runs along the S shore. We hadn't hiked it before and so used that as excuse to reacquaint ourselves with the lower river. The Galice-Merlin Road was temporaily closed by a landslide, so we worked our way to the TH from I-5/Sunny Valley via some backroads.



Much of this trail is hewn out of solid rock,



and runs both well above the river (note the main Rogue River trail on the far side of the river),



and down close to river level.



About a mile in, we passed Sanderson's Island,



and the remaining pier of Sanderson's mule and foor bridge that was washed away in the 1927 flood.



Across the river, we could make out the sign (arrow) indicating high water during the 1964 flood - 55 feet above the river!



A mile further on, we came to Rainie Falls, a 15-20' Class V drop in the river. Something to look forward to for our raft trip in June. It's possible that, as the bow of the raft tips into this rapid, it may occur to us that walking and carrying a backpack wasn't so bad after all. We'll see...









After a snack, we headed back along the trail, which runs through patches of forest,



past rapids,



and along a cliff face,



back to the TH, with one last look at the Rogue as it heads toward Gold Beach and the Pacific.



This is a short hike (4.2 mi RT, 180' EG) but you could add a hike out and back on the main Rogue River trail to Whisky Creek Cabin, making for an 11 mi RT day.

I remember seeing that trail across the river on my Rogue River Trip in May 2013. That should be an exciting trip over the falls! When are you planning on rafting it?

I've tried to get a good view of Rainie Falls from the other side, but you can't get to it good.

I think there's a channel on the North side you can go through to avoid the falls.

That should be a fun raft trip.

miah66 wrote:I remember seeing that trail across the river on my Rogue River Trip in May 2013. That should be an exciting trip over the falls! When are you planning on rafting it?

Looks like we'll go the first week in June - weather will be (hopefully) hot but not too hot.

retired jerry wrote:I've tried to get a good view of Rainie Falls from the other side, but you can't get to it good.

I think there's a channel on the North side you can go through to avoid the falls.

That should be a fun raft trip.

The main trail turns a little inland here, making it hard to see Rainie. That channel was cut as a fish ladder and is the route used by most boaters - so likely we'll not have the YAHOO moment offered by the main falls or middle channel options. Should be a great trip - looking forward to gliding past some hot, sweaty backpackers struggling along the main trail above us.

Cool. Enjoy your raft trip. I did that a number of years ago, really enjoyed it. We saw osprey nearly constantly. There were 2 bear sightings, but somehow I missed it both times. I had a small sturgeon nearly jump into the boat with me when I was playing around in one of the inflatable kayaks we had that we all took turns with.