The North Umpqua Trail is about 80 miles long paralleling the North Umpqua River, near Roseburg, Oregon. There are 11 segments, 10 open to biking, ranging from 3.6 - 15.7 miles in length. Joe@MBD and I started at the western end and rode Lemolo, Dread and Terror, Hot Springs, Deer Leap and Jessie Wright for a total of about 38 miles. This is by far the best Oregon trail I've ever ridden. Except for quite a few narrow spots with pretty good drop-offs to the river below, it is not especially technical. And even though it is primarily downhill, there are plenty of difficult steep climbs.
The Lemolo section is a great, fast warm-up for the next section, Dread and Terror, which gives a good sampling of deep, dark, Oregon rain forest. Although fairly short, Hot Springs starts with some pretty tough climbs and ends with some great big ups and downs. Deer Leap involves some major climbing back up to 3,000 ft., perhaps a thousand feet above the river. The temperature was in the high 80's by then and it was pretty tough. Jessie Wright was a nice cool down. We only saw a handful of other riders and a few hikers the entire ride. We stopped quite a bit for photos, more on my photo site.
Joe slipped on this.
Wall of mosses.
Filtering some water.
The Lemolo section is a great, fast warm-up for the next section, Dread and Terror, which gives a good sampling of deep, dark, Oregon rain forest. Although fairly short, Hot Springs starts with some pretty tough climbs and ends with some great big ups and downs. Deer Leap involves some major climbing back up to 3,000 ft., perhaps a thousand feet above the river. The temperature was in the high 80's by then and it was pretty tough. Jessie Wright was a nice cool down. We only saw a handful of other riders and a few hikers the entire ride. We stopped quite a bit for photos, more on my photo site.
Joe slipped on this.
Wall of mosses.
Filtering some water.