North Umpqua Trail

Four of us headed to the North Umpqua River this weekend for a camping / mtn biking adventure. It was Katie's first camping experience so we tried had to do it up right. Instead of hotdogs though, we make chicken sausages. Katie is a great cook so she jumped at the opportunity to saute the sausages after a failed attempt at roasting them. Katie is also the master smores maker. We are taking ADVANCED smores making here. Melted Reeces Peanutbutter cup smores. WOW! If I didn't know better, I would say that she is an experienced camper.
Kate is an experienced camper, as you can tell by the Red Stripe. She's a Montana girl and knows her way around camp.
It was cold. We were all shocked by the temps. I had on all my warm clothes and wasn't about to wonder far from the camp fire. We had rain Sun night, but luckily it was just enough to make a pleasant pitter patter on the tent - it lulled me to sleep.
Kate and Katie shuttled Jay and I up the trail. There was a fire in the area, but we thought it was in the section where the trail crossed the the opposite side of the river. We set off on the Deer Leap Segment of the North Umpqua Trail. It was absolutely amazing. When we came out on the other end of the trail, we learned it was closed due to fire activity. Way to post it on both ends of the trail...luckily we weren't really in the fire area. We are watching the smoke billow and the helicopter come in from water. As a result, we really weren't able to ride the Jessie Wright Segment. The rest of the ride was amazing though. We roded through Panther and then bailed out onto the road. I was so glad when Jay just laughed at me and said that I was a whoosie for bailing, but was right on my tail. I was beat and it was getting cold and looked like rain. We rode the Mott Segment the day before in combintation with Strawberry so I didn't feel like I was missing anything. This trail was amazing and I can't wait to explore more of it.