Day 27 – It rained some during the night & the forecast was more rain and cooler during the day. Sounded like a good day for a drive south to scope out campgrounds for our next stop. Since Monday is a holiday & parks may be more crowded, we decided to stay at Boice Cope an additional night. We stopped at the campground host’s RV & paid our $20. Evidently this Park is a well-known location for sail-boarding and kite-boarding on the Lake, and the winds are supposed to pick up Sunday into Monday. It could get busier here, and there could be good picture opportunities. Also, there’s a Beach Hazard Warning for the Sunday/Monday timeframe about big waves along with the winds. The Ocean is already loud here; should be interesting!
We were headed south on the 101 by 9:30 a.m., coffee & maps in hand. Not much traffic yet, light rain, misty/foggy out, quite lovely. It was 46 degrees when we got up, mid-fifties as we were driving towards Gold Beach. Past Port Orford & Humbug Mountain, we entered new territory; the Ocean views were wonderful. We stopped at a couple of campgrounds on the way to Gold Beach, took notes & moved on. Our research had showed that there weren’t State Park campgrounds in that area, but there were some Forest Service campgrounds and a County Park. Some of these Parks have already closed for the season; others are just tent camping or they have a 20 foot maximum length for sites. For the most part, we knew we were left with the independent campgrounds to choose from – their websites can be deceiving, so we wanted to see them for ourselves before booking. (If it’s just a 1 or 2 night stopover, it doesn’t matter that much, but we wanted to stay 5 to 7 nights in this area. We have found some really good independent campgrounds, but for the most part the one we’ve looked at are basically large open parking lots – if we wanted crowds we’d have stayed in the City, LOL.)
Okay, moving on, the reason we wanted to stay awhile at the Gold Beach area was basically the Rogue River. This large & long River flows out to the sea at Gold Beach. The city itself is a resort area with lots of fish restaurants and opportunities for world-class fishing, hunting, surfing, hiking, biking, boating, birding, etc. nearby on the Rogue River. The further inland you go along the River, the wilder it becomes. It is particularly wild in the spring when the waters are all rushing out to the Ocean. Chinook salmon is caught here regularly. And people have recommended Jerry’s Rogue Jets, They offer three different trips up the Rogue River during the high season, one trip this time of year. We would’ve loved to do the all-day trip which is a 104 mile round trip with white water rapids, nature sightings, and rugged canyon scenery. The one trip available this time of year was 64 miles round trip, 9:30 to 2:00 with a lunch stop where the road ends at a Lodge in Agness, OR. This trip is described as the historic mail boat route, soft scenic river adventure. Guess we’ll have to get wet another time! We bought our tickets when we got to Gold Beach, reserving the trip for Wednesday.
We drove south of Gold Beach checking out the campgrounds along Highway 101 on the Ocean. Taking notes, we still hadn’t found what we were looking for, but we knew there were campgrounds along the River inland from Gold Beach. The road runs inland along both sides of the River for at least 10 miles, then you can take a bridge over the River & travel back to Highway 101 on the other side. Both sides had campgrounds & a few houses here & there, but were otherwise not very populated. After the bridge the road goes on about 20 miles on one side only, ending at Agness. The River keeps going, no roads, and it gets wilder. It will be an interesting boat ride next time we’re here and can take the longer boat ride into the wilderness.
We checked out many campgrounds on the River. The ones catering to fishermen were almost full. None of the Forest Service campgrounds, nor the County Park, would’ve worked for us because they were either not capable of taking vehicles our size or the few sites where we would fit were no hook-ups, no dump station. We found a campground we really did like, 3 miles inland from Gold Beach; it was almost full so once we’d checked everything out we drove back there again & made a reservation for one week beginning Tuesday.
We had lunch at Dockside Cafe in Gold Beach, a table overlooking the marina, and the food was good – great fresh fish. They were busy for 1:30 on a Saturday afternoon. When we got back to our campsite, the campground was filling up & judging from the campers, word had gotten out about the coming weather. Got some hard-core wind & wave enthusiasts here; we’re looking forward to tomorrow afternoon. Almost everyone here, man or woman, was very tall & lean, they had lots of equipment for their sports, and they all had at least one dog. Most, if not all, seemed to know each other. Late in the evening, a group arrived and set up a number of tents; they were amazingly quiet. We found out the next day that they were hunters & they wanted to get some sleep before heading out early the next morning. Everyone has been quite nice, quiet & respectful of others. The man parking near us with the cat takes it (her name is Mathilda) out on a leash, then puts her in a cage where she sits for a while daily, observing the activity. We observe the activity, too; it’s all been quite interesting. The rain stopped early in the afternoon, it never rained that hard, but it gave everything a misty look. The high was 59 degrees at the Ocean, 63 degrees inland.