BEYOND THE BARD
5 MORE THINGS TO DO NEAR ASHLAND
Oregon is famous for its lush forests and roaring rivers — and its passion for the Bard, which draws legions of theater fans to Ashland each year for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Whether you're headed north for a little Miranda and Prospero action or simply looking for an uncrowded vacation destination that doesn't involve airports, Southern Oregon offers all sorts of ways to eat, drink and explore. Here's just a sampling of ways to play.
Hike the Highway of Waterfalls
Oregon's legendary rainfall doesn't just keep things green, it feeds rivers, lakes and more than 1,600 waterfalls across the state. The Highway of Waterfalls, a 172-mile stretch of the RogueUmpqua Scenic Byway, offers a gorgeous concentration of them, along with hikes that range from zero effort (just look out your car window) to moderately challenging.
The scenic byway, which starts near Roseburg and slaloms east along the banks of the North Umpqua River before curving southward toward Gold Hill and Medford, is fairly remote. Make sure you fuel up both your car (do that in Roseburg) and yourself before setting out. You'll find the Atom Bistro and Coffee Bar — and its Sasquatch-inspired breakfast burritos and other tasty fare — in the small town of Glide. Also in Glide: Colliding Rivers Park, where the North Umpqua and Little River don't just meet, they collide dead-on in a roiling basalt pool, before making a sharp course correct and flowing west.
The byway brings heartbreaking reminders of last summer's lightning-sparked Devils Knob Complex fires in Umpqua National Forest. But there are glorious views, too, of the rushing river, the small waterfalls tumbling next to the road or glimpsed through a sea of green foliage. And short hikes bring you to more than a dozen major cascades, including Toketee Falls, Watson Falls and Lemolo Falls.
The hike to the Toketee viewing platform, where you can see the waterfall tumble more than 100 feet, framed by columnar basalt, is less than a mile round trip, but it includes 200 uneven steps, so if it's raining — as it was when we were there — be careful. And in case you're wondering, that 12-foot-diameter redwood stave pipe spewing alarming streams of water in the parking lot is the Toketee Pipeline, built in 1949 to divert river water to a powerhouse downstream.
DON'T MISS >> Prospect State Scenic Viewpoint offers views of both the Mill Creek Waterfall and Barr Creek Waterfall just 10 minutes' walk from the parking lot.
DETAILS >> The Atom Bistro and Coffee Bar is open from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. weekdays, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekends at 20168 Highway 138 in Glide; theatomcoffeebar.com.