Why this ride
The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,700 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Rogue Umpqua Scenic Byway: Diamond Lake to Gold Hill
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 176 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 2 h 56
- Journey
- One way; return travel is separate
Distance and timing basis
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Scenic road chapters
Rogue Umpqua Scenic Byway
Slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did. Water arrives beside the road and stays for 64 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go.
Chapter facts
- Length
- 33 km
- Named road
- Rogue Umpqua Scenic Byway
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Diamond Lake
Mount Thielsen is the first thing you see, and it is hard to look at anything else. The mountain rises behind Diamond Lake in the Oregon Cascades, a needle of dark volcanic rock about 2,800 metres high, so sharp and so often struck by lightning that it is known as the lightning rod of the Cascades. It is an old volcano, eroded by glaciers until only the plug of hardened lava in the core remains. The lake sits at around 1,600 metres in a forested basin, with the broader bulk of Mount Bailey on its other side, and the water reflects both peaks on a calm morning.
Read the complete Diamond Lake write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Diamond Lake is where the day begins. Next is Crater Lake.
2. Crater Lake
Crater Lake does not look real the first time you see it. The water is a deep, saturated blue, almost unnaturally pure, and it fills a bowl nearly ten kilometres across, with steep walls rising some six hundred metres above the surface. It formed about 7,700 years ago, when the volcano Mount Mazama erupted so violently that it emptied its magma chamber and collapsed in on itself. Rain and snow slowly filled the caldera, and with no rivers flowing in or out, the water stayed exceptionally clear. At nearly six hundred metres, it is the deepest lake in the United States.
Read the complete Crater Lake write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Crater Lake comes up about 33 km into the recorded legs. Next is Gold Hill.
3. Gold Hill
Gold Hill lives up to its name in a modest way. A gold strike in the early 1850s brought miners into this stretch of the Rogue River valley in southern Oregon, and the town grew where the river cuts through a narrow stretch of rock, with a small downtown of brick storefronts and a bridge across the water. Today it is a quiet place of about twelve hundred people, with a diner or two, a hardware store and the feel of a place that lets the interstate pass on the other side of the hill. Locals fish for salmon and steelhead in the Rogue, and rafting companies run the stretches of river below.
Read the complete Gold Hill write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
The route ends here after 176 km.
Leg by leg
Diamond Lake to Crater Lake
Diamond Lake → Crater Lake is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Crater Lake to Gold Hill
Crater Lake → Gold Hill is 143 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.