Watson Falls
Top of Watson Falls at 10X zoom.
This falls is on the North Umpqua, a ½ mile from hiway 138,
which we traversed from Roseburg eastward.
It’s 273’ high.
This is a USFS campground in the Rogue Nat’l Forest,
bordering the upper Rogue at 3400’ elevation, 10 miles west of Crater Lake NP. Our campsite is right beside a mini-gorge
where the river channels down from 40’ wide to 3’ at the narrowest point. The rock faces in the gorge are sculpted and
polished by the roaring, boiling water.
.
Down the road 4 miles is a much larger and deeper gorge,
with a flow rate of 410,000 gallons per minute.
How did they determine that?
Let’s see:
A.
Build 2 coffer dams ¼ mile apart, with a large lift gate in the upstream
dam. Open the lift gate for 1 minute. Have 10,000 guys line up between the coffer
dams, each with a 5 gallon pail. They
bail out all the water, each guy keeping a careful tally on his bucket
count. When the bailing is all done you
add up the tally and there you have it.
Piece of cake.
B. Use the coffer dams but replace the 10,000
guys with a couple generators and pumps.
C. Measure average depth, width and flow rate,
do the math. Least expensive method but
not nearly as much fun to contemplate.
Nearby is Natural Bridge where the river disappears underground
and travels through a lava tube. It’s a
beautiful area with towering Douglas Firs and the weather is perfect. Many thanks to Doug and Jan for steering us
to this area, and to Trish for cancelling our Crater Lake campground in favor
of this one. Not only is this campground
more appealing, it costs 1/3 as much.
The private concessionaire at Crater Lake doesn’t accept the Golden
Passport card (fondly known as the Old Fart Card) which provides with ½ priced
camping in most federal campgrounds and free entry into national parks.
There’s another park named Farewell Bend; it’s on the Snake
River on the OR/ID border. At that
point, the Oregon Trail pioneers split up, some continuing westward to the
Willamette Valley, while others hung a left and headed south to CA. I don't know why this park has the same name; I'll get back to you on the name origin.
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