While we have been in Southern Oregon, we camped near the banks of The Rogue River. The Rogue was one of the original 8 rivers named in the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act of 1968. If you hadn’t heard of that particular piece of legislation, well neither had we. It apparently keeps dams from being built, among other things, on certain rivers. The Rogue flows about 200 miles draining areas of the Cascade Mountains including the Crater Lake area and other parts of Southern Oregon and empties into the Pacific Ocean. Various dams have been removed from the Rogue to help restore its wild nature and it now is a popular river for trout and salmon.
Our campground was the Valley of the Rogue State Park, located between the towns of Grants Pass and Medford. We generally don’t plan ahead well enough to stay in state parks, but we got booked into this one on fairly short notice. It had the benefits of being a 50 amp full hookup park and even had laundry facilities. There was a nice paved bike path along the Rouge for several miles. It was good to be back in a public park again – they have a different feel to them than private RV parks, even if we did have to break out the portable satellite dish to obtain a TV signal. It was even an opportunity to have a campfire and have a weenie roast (someone had to take the picture).
During the two times that we visited Crater Lake, we followed the Rogue from our campground all the way up to its headwaters. The river falls nearly a mile in elevation on its run to the Pacific so there are frequent areas of rapids. We made a stop to view it in the Rogue River Gorge where it has cut through an area of ancient lava flows.
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