Sunday October 27, 28, 2013 Winchuck river, OR.
Camped on the East fork of the Winchuck River
Today was the day to take off on my next little adventure. The destination is the south Oregon Coast. I’ll be exploring around and doing some kayaking on some of the rivers around here.
I left the house around ten thirty this morning, gassed up in town and was on my way, up 101 to the Oregon border. The Winchuck River is just across the California border, just below Brookings, Or.
My plan was to drive out the Winchuck river road and find a camp in the forest for the night.
I traveled out the Winchuck river road about seven or eight miles until I left the pavement. A lady once told me that once I left the pavement, when I got to a fork in the road, that I wasn’t sure which way to go, take the high road to the left and not the road to the right that goes down, so I did.
I didn’t go far until some camp sites showed up along the river. I passed by the first ones that had some people there and went just a little further and found a place along the river. I pulled on down to the site and had a look around as to how to park,……… level, of course and got that out of the way. That was around six PM, still about an hour of day light.
East Winchuck River camp site
I got out the chair and relaxed by the roaring river. It’s just about creek size here, but it drops down the hill fairly fast and makes quite a rumble.
The East fork of the Winchuck river making a lot of noise by my camp.
I decided I’d have a fire, so I got out my waxed type store bought log and cut a quarter of it off with my machete and that was my fire base. I rounded up a few damp fir tree limbs, mostly just for the aroma and lite the waxed log off.
My campfire just after I lite it off. It got a little larger than that, but not much with the damp fire wood in the area. It’s amazing what a little flame will do to improve things.
You might also notice I did not use that big old rock fire pit. Touristy stuff, those big ol things. I want to get warm, not heat a big pile of rocks that hold in the heat, even with a big fire, so I used the side of it, instead.
Now, being by the water, it’s nice and damp out, lot’s of dew, so when the fire burned low after a couple hours, I retired to my van with the civilized propane heater in it. :O)
Tomorrow, I plan to kayak the Winchuck River down by it’s mouth as there is a launch area there. It’s a short river, as far as the kayaking part, so it shouldn’t take too long, then I will continue up to the Arizona Lodge where Steve is staying. I’ll be looking for another camp site in that area too.
Not a bad drive today up 101, the traffic was mostly light and I found my campsite before dark.
Day Two, Kayaking the Winchuck River
Tuesday October 28, 2013, Winchuck River, OR.
After getting off to a rather slow start this morning, I explored up the road I was camped on a bit further. Just past where I was camped was the Ludium camp ground. This is National Forest land. I went back to the intersection in the road where I turned up the hill yesterday and this time whet down the hill to the National Forest Winchuck campground and looked around that area for a bit. It seemed I was in the best camp spot last night.
From there I went back out to the 101 highway and crossed over it to the Winchuck river mouth parking area where I put my kayak in the water.
This is the launch area where I put the kayak in the water, near the Winchuck River’s mouth.
I headed upstream, under the 101 highway bridge, which is in the picture below.
An upriver picture as I was paddling up the river.
The river was about three feet lower than the last time I was on it. It doesn’t go very far until the gravel bars are too low, maybe about three quarters of a mile is as far as I could get up it today.
This is where I turned around and started heading on back down the river.
I leisurely paddled back down stopping often along the way.
Steve told me the river’s mouth was closed, so I went over to take a look.
He was wrong, it’s open, but it was hard to see from the parking lot where Steve looked at it the day before on his way up to where he was staying.
This is a picture of the open Winchuck river’s mouth, looking out to the Pacific Ocean.
Rock Quarry Campsite
I needed a campsite that wasn’t too far from where Steve was staying, so I did some looking around after I kayaked. I headed up highway 101 and I went up to HumBug camp area and took the China MT. Road up to the hill tops. Four Wheeling up there. I found some suitable camp spots but felt they were a bit on the far side to go, so I decided to look back at a rock quarry along the highway that I had passed that was a lot closer to where Steve was staying.
I’ve had good luck camping in unused rock quarry’s along the road in the past, so I checked it out.
This quarry had a lower and an upper section, so I drove up to the upper one as it was a bit further from the highway and had a good ocean view too.
Yes, I think this will do for a camp for the night. I cooked up some dinner and then watched the sun go down.
This is my rock quarry campsite, just as the sun was starting to go down for the day.
One of my views from my rock quarry campsite, looking to the north, Pacific Ocean.
Here’s today’s sunset.
I got back in my van and went on down to see what Steve’s plans were for tomorrow.
It seems we are headed up highway 101 about a hundred miles to kayak a little lake or something that Ralph told us about. Ralph runs the place where Steve is staying called Arizona Lodge. Then we are going to explore a river or two.
I hope to post this tomorrow somewhere up the line as we head up there.
