N. Umpqua River

Tammi and I made a quick trip down south to the North Umpqua River this last weekend for a little backpacking.  My usual attempts at hurrying the wife along on a Friday after work, for the current weekend adventure, for the most part never work. I have a thing about leaving for trips sooner than humanly possible.


My standard ploys include: packing everything myself, loading everything myself, threatening to make her drive, and as a last resort.. Pouting.
But for some reason she was on the ball Friday, and we were on the road relatively early.
Unfortunately, Portland traffic had other plans for us.
The typical 30min to Salem turned into 2 hours.
Which lead to us getting a hotel in Springfield.  I swear it was all her idea.
Which gave us the opportunity to witness some asshole freaking out on the hotel clerk that his cable didn’t work and he couldn’t watch the Olympics?
And I quote “This is a god damn disgrace, this is fucking Track Town USA, blah, blah, blah”
The rest of our brief stay in Springfield was uneventful, but never the less unforgettable.
We got a late start on the trail due to the traffic delay the night before.
Did I mention that it was in the upper 90’s?

But once we got going all those worries disappeared, replaced by the sights and sounds of the mighty Umpqua. We only hiked for maybe six mile before finding a nice camp right on the river.  The North Umpqua River Trail totals 66 miles and is entirely on BLM land.  This means free camping anywhere you want.

The first order of business was to strip down and dive in.  Sorry no pictures.

We’d packed in a couple bottles of wine, and were soon enjoying a glass of Pinot as we warmed up around the fire.  Our bellies grumbling after a hot day of hiking we cooked up some Thai peanut noodles that we’d dehydrated the week before, which is a great recipe by the way.

The sun was soon setting and more wood and wine was needed to keep is warm.  Until next time...