Umpqua National Forest: The River That Runs Toward Crater Lake

The North Umpqua River runs for more than one hundred miles through the Umpqua National Forest before leaving the Cascades and entering the Umpqua Valley wine country. The forest itself covers about one million acres of the western and central Cascades south of the Three Sisters, a landscape shaped by the same volcanic forces that created Crater Lake to the south.

Highway One Thirty-Eight, which follows the North Umpqua through the forest from Roseburg to Crater Lake, is one of Oregon's officially designated scenic byways, and the drive lives up to it. The river is fast and green and cold, running over basalt bedrock in a series of drops that have made it one of the premier white-water kayaking rivers in the state. The North Umpqua Trail, about seventy-nine miles long, runs along the river from below Swiftwater Park to the Cascade crest. It is long enough to require multiple days and varied enough to reward them.

The forest surrounds Crater Lake National Park on its northern and western sides. The park gets the lake. The forest gets the watershed that feeds it. Susan Creek, Toketee Falls, and Watson Falls are all within the forest, accessible by short walks off the highway. Toketee Falls, where the North Umpqua drops over a basalt ledge into a cylindrical plunge pool, is one of the most photographed waterfalls in Oregon.

The Umpqua Tribe is part of the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians, a federally recognized tribe based in Canyonville. Their territory covered much of the Umpqua watershed, including the river corridor that the national forest now manages.