This morning, I woke up at around 6:15 AM, showered, packed up, and checked out of the motel room at 7:30 AM in order to catch the 7:45 AM bus to Grants Pass. While walking out of the motel, I picked up a bowl of cereal and milk, which was offered as part of the continental breakfast in the hotel’s check-in office. I then walked a couple of blocks to the main bus station in Medford and boarded the 7:45 AM bus to Grants Pass. Once I arrived in Grants Pass, I had about 4 hours to spare before the 12:30 PM bus departed to Merlin, the nearest town to the start of the Rogue River Trail.
During the few hours in Grants Pass, I slowly began to realize the patience I would need as a public-transportation-reliant backpacker, especially one traveling through lightly populated, rural areas. I spent the next four hours walking up 6th Street, the main one-way boulevard through the town. Unlike Medford, Grants Pass had character, walkability, and small-town charm. One of the charming things about the town is the dozens of bear sculptures situated on the sidewalks throughout the Downtown area. Each of these bear sculptures are unique, extremely detailed, and often placed in front of businesses with themes that match the businesses. For example, in front of a wine store there was a bear stomping on raw grapes inside a wooden container, in front of the courthouse there is a bear sculpture named “integrity,” etc.
While walking on 6th Street, there was an arch over the street with letters spelling out the phrase “Grants Pass: It’s the Climate.” This sign seems to answer the question going through the minds of all the visitors passing through this city: “Why do people choose to live in Grants Pass?” The primary reason for many of the retirees living in Grants Pass is the mild temperatures, which rarely drop below freezing or over 100 degrees. Besides that Grants Pass is a beautiful city, with great walkability, charming character, and easily accessible world-class recreational activities.
I also walked along “G” street, a street perpendicular to 6th Street, which is lined on one side with historical buildings from the early 1900s. Most of these storefronts are currently used as hip restaurants, bars and boutiques. Interestingly, on “G” street directly across the street from these historical storefronts is an outdated, unattractive, single-story, 1950s-era strip center. The strip center is probably 50,000 SF, and is an attractive property because it encompasses a full city block, stretching the entire length of “G” Street between 6th and 4th Street. This location is the bull’s-eye of the city and seems like it would make an excellent long-term investment downtowns around the country are continuing to be revitalized, and transforming into increasingly pedestrian-friendly areas and likely even future locations for high-density residential development.
Before walking to the bus stop, I ordered lunch at Bluestone Cafe in Grants Pass. The food was delicious, especially the homemade buns and quinoa black-bean patties.
At 12:30 PM, the bus departed from Grants Pass to Merlin. Merlin is about a 15-minute bus ride northwest of Grants Pass. In retrospect, I probably could have just taken a $15-$20 cab ride to Merlin but I wasn’t in much of a rush to start backpacking before Friday afternoon anyway. Once I exited the bus in Merlin, I needed to find a way to continue 15 miles on the road until Grave Creek Boat Ramp. For a few minutes, I continued walking on the road while simultaneously attempting to hitchhike from the occasional passing cars. About a quarter mile up the road from the bus stop, there was a business offering daylong rafting trips, equipment rentals, shuttle services, and other adventure services. I inquired and luckily was able to get an immediate ride to the boat ramp for $40. These companies usually charge a flat fee for each trip to a trailhead, regardless of whether there’s just one passenger or five passengers. However, the company probably needed to go to the trailhead anyway, so I was lucky to be able to obtain a reasonably-priced ride. Also, the lady offered a free hiking map, which was very useful while backpacking the trail. Sometime in the past couple of hours, my 15-page detailed map and print out had fallen out of my backpack so I ended up relying on this map for the entire trip. Also, because of this shuttle, I arrived at the boat ramp at about 2PM, thus being able to begin the backpacking trip a couple hours sooner than originally planned.
During the first few miles of the Rogue River Trail, I was still becoming accustomed to the constant sound of moving water, which I would be my background noise for the next 48 hours. The sounds of the rapids, creeks, and river were a constant reminder of the millions of years of erosion, tectonic activity, sediment transportation, and other geologic activity that has been occurring here for millions of years. Moreover, I’m witnessing plants and animals that have been evolving over millions of years in response to their surroundings and environment. It’s difficult to wrap my head around all the factors that have played a part in just one landscape, but trying to wrap my head around it and understand is one of the best ways to truly appreciate how awesome nature, biology, and geology really are.
During the first day, it was exciting and fascinating to realize that there are significantly-sized, flowing creeks about every mile, and there are lightly flowing/dry creeks seemingly around every corner. These creeks and streams run straight into Rogue River, greatly contributing to its flow rate and likely playing a major role in increasing its water flow during times of rain and snowmelt. After seeing all these streams feeding the Rogue River, it’s not surprising that the water levels have risen by as much as 30-50 feet during numerous floods in the past century. These creeks made hiking much easier by limiting the amount of water I needed to carry. At each creek, I simply scooped water from the stream into the “Life Straw” water bottle, and it was simultaneously filtered/treated as I drank the water and it passed through the straw.
At mile 7.6, while passing through Bronco’s Creek, I lost my footing and my right boot was completely soaked in water. I still completed the last couple of miles in the wet boots, but hiked the remaining 1.5 days in running shoes. This ended up working out to my advantage, because the hiking boots were already causing blisters to form (even before they were wet), and the running shoes didn’t cause any new blisters or worsen any existing blisters.
At mile 9.1, there was an ideally situated campsite along Bunker Creek. I set up camp at around 7PM and retreated into the tent to spend the night. During the night, I woke up numerous times likely due to the strong, unrelenting sound of water rushing above, around, under and in between the rocks and boulders, quickly heading toward the relatively calm Rogue River.
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