Rogue River January 23, 2017

[retired jerry]

Time for my annual trip down the Rogue River. I hiked about 17 miles down and back, camped out 4 nights. Weather was great, but cool. No snow.

This is great to consider in the winter when it's snowy everywhere else, and it's far enough south, sometimes the weather is better there.

The trail goes above the river about half the time, and further away the rest:

I camped a couple nights at Slide Camp about 3.7 miles in. Huge flat area for many tents:

[Chip Down]

Wow, it's been another year already.
Doesn't seem like a very interesting four-night trip, especially this time of year, but it's a tradition, so I guess there's no stopping now.
I bet you had lots of solitude. Anybody else out there?

[Jim57]

Jerry,

bears? rattlesnakes? poison oak?

I backpacked the Rogue River Trail in 2015 and 2016. I learned enough the first time to have an even better time the second. It's kinda like doing the same hikes over and over again up the Columbia gorge or anywhere else. Different everytime.

The US Forest Service has a great PDF describing the entire hike. https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DO ... 346991.pdf

While hiking the Rogue last year I read the book "Illahe: The story of settlement in the Rogue River canyon Paperback – 1978" Had a lot of wonderful historical information about the area as well as the people who settled the area.

Galice Lodge was the only organization that was doing the shuttle in april last year.

I love this hike as well and will be doing it again. . .

[retired jerry]

4 nights, no other people. On the way in and the way out I saw some people on the other side of the river in the first mile

I have never seen bears there. Or Poison Oak. I think there's more on the other end.

I put a bunch of info in the field guide if anyone's thinking about doing this.

[drm]

I can understand wanting to avoid the cost and hassles of a shuttle, which I guess is not even possible this time of year. But some of the best scenery is on the western side of the trail. I hope anybody who does the out-and-back version has at some point managed to go most of the way through.

Also, has anybody done the recently refurbished loop version of this trail? The loop goes up on the ridge and I don't know what the snow line is now. It's apparently all dry up there so you have to carry water, and it doesn't take in very much of the riverside trail either. So I'm not much drawn to the loop, unless somebody tells me otherwise.

[retired jerry]

Yeah, West end is good. I usually just do the east because it's closer. And maybe a little less rain.

Yeah, someone posted about that loop, good idea.

[CoastHiker]

My brother and I hiked that loop 4 years ago before they cleared it out. We started on the ridge and hiked downhill to the Clay Hill area the first night. In the morning we backtracked west to Flora Dell Falls, which made for a really nice morning and a fuller day of hiking. We then headed back east to our camp to pack up the rest of our stuff and followed the main Rogue Trail to camp by Mule Creek on the second night. We then followed the Mule Creek trail back up to the ridge trail. At that time, the trail up Mule Creek was some of the hardest hiking I've ever done. There were many areas where the trail just disappeared and we'd have to bushwhack around for a while to find something that seemed like a trail (a task made more nerve racking by the rattle snake we'd seen towards the beginning of the trail). We'd planned to camp at the spring that is the start of Buck Creek, but decided to just keep hiking. There was a solid, if unspectacular, area to camp there though, and it is very near the short trail out to Hanging Rock. Hanging Rock alone is worth doing the loop because it is an amazing viewpoint out over the whole Rogue/Illinois River area. The rest of the hike back to the beginning of the loop is just solid woods walking through old growth (but not truly huge) forest. I actually loved the loop. The part of the river from Flora Dell to Mule Creek Canyon is spectacular, the decent down to Clay Hill was actually really lovely, and the stop at Hanging Rock was amazing.

[retired jerry]

The only thing I don't like about river trails like the Rogue, is you don't get good views, although views of ridges above you are somewhat nice

Hiking off the Rogue up to a ridge would provide better views, I'll have to try that next time

[CampinCarl]

Hanging Rock alone is worth doing the loop because it is an amazing viewpoint out over the whole Rogue/Illinois River area.

I wholeheartedly agree with this comment. I have not done the loop but did an overnight near Hanging Rock from Buck Point Trailhead. I went over Memorial Day and there was water in the upper reaches of Buck Creek. It was great to hang out at Hanging Rock for sunrise and sunset, spectacular views.

[Jim57]

I talked to Galice Resort 2/3/17. They are doing the shuttle for anyone interested.