CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
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.
304 km from Roseburg to Gold Hill, about 4 h 58 of riding. The stops in between: Toketee Falls, Diamond Lake and Crater Lake. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,700 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
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 39 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go.
Roseburg is the main town of the Umpqua valley in southern Oregon, with around twenty-two thousand people, an old timber economy and a position right where Interstate 5 crosses the South Umpqua River. For many years the city was proud to call itself the Timber Capital of the Nation, and mills, logging trucks and sawdust were everyday companions. The industry has shrunk, but the town still carries a rugged working feel, with a pleasant old downtown, murals, and several breweries.
Read the complete Roseburg write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Roseburg is where the day begins. Next is Toketee Falls.
Toketee Falls drops about thirty-five metres in two steps over a wall of columnar basalt into a dark green pool, and it is one of the best waterfalls in Oregon. The North Umpqua River, which feeds it, runs through a narrow gorge of volcanic rock, and just above the falls it is squeezed into a channel so narrow that the whole river passes through a slot only a few metres wide. The columns of basalt, formed when lava cooled and cracked into hexagonal prisms, give the cliff the look of a giant organ pipe, and the water breaks around them in white threads.
Read the complete Toketee Falls write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Toketee Falls comes up about 96 km into the recorded legs. Next is 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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 129 km into the recorded legs you reach Diamond Lake. Next is 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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Crater Lake, late in the day. Next is 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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Finish at Gold Hill. That is the ride.
Roseburg → Toketee Falls is 96 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Toketee Falls → Diamond Lake is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Diamond Lake → Crater Lake is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Crater Lake → Gold Hill is 144 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.