In an attempt to give Chris some time to work on his thesis (he napped for four hours instead!) and to raise my heartrate enough to shove off this horrific cold, Sylvan and I drove down I-5 to Roseburg on Saturday to the North Bank Deer Preserve, which overlooks the North Umqua River, a wide, gravelly fly-fisher’s dream. The BLM-managed area was created to provide habitat for the federally endangered Columbia white-tailed deer. Thanks to my need to study a sketched map, we stopped early in the hike and actually saw three deer as we sat quietly by the gravel road. Sylvan watched and pointed as the deer stotted through the September-dead grass and Oregon white oaks.
Neither Sylvan nor I saw the “fainter track/old roadbed” mentioned in the hiking guide, so we set off cross-country, following deer and horse trails through the thigh-high, crispy grass. Soon, Sylvan asked to get out and explore, so we sat in the shade of some enormous oaks, eating Cheerios. We heard a raven, not a bird I’ve ever heard at 600 feet in Eugene, and one of my favorites, because it reminds me of being in the mountains.
When we started hiking again, I walked uphill, dodging the frighteningly prevalent poison oak (Really, it was frightening. Some of my former students, the ones I’ve urged on as they scrambled on all fours up rock ledges while whining that they were going to die, would have enjoyed watching me dance around the poison oak. I’ll let you know in a few days if I avoided it enough and used enough Tecnu in the shower hours later.). We bushwhacked along a ridge strung with large oaks. Sylvan fell asleep. I wasn’t sure where we were, but I could basically see from where we’d come. Eventually, we hit a gravel road that wasn’t on the guidebook’s sketched map.
I turned away from the direction of the car, hoping to get in a little more of a hike. Now that I was on a road and didn’t have to think about navigating anymore, I noticed how many different trees forested the darker valleys: madrone, Douglas fir, big-leaf maple, oak, and a conifer too far away to identify. After some uphill walking, I headed back downhill. Walking down the road, through the oak woodland and oak savanna, I was surprised by how much the light and color looked like the mountains of the southwest in the fall; everything was yellow and brown, dry and crunchy. The speckled light under the trees made this place look like just what it had once been – cattle pastures. As lovely as the Deer Preserve was, the cattle pasture feeling reminded me that I really need deep, green forests for my outdoor rejuvenation. Maybe next weekend?