Driving from Roseburg to Crater Lake on OR 138, you will encounter no less than 12 waterfalls along the Rogue-Umpqua Scenic Byway. I identified six worth photographing and that had reasonable hikes. Because of time constraints, we ended up seeking out three of the best.

In my opinion, Toketee Falls is the best waterfall on this drive. A short 0.8 round trip hike (though pretty good elevation gain) brings you to a platform with the best view on the extreme left hand side. This entire region is made of volcanoes, so there is a lot of beautiful columnar basalt. We should have been there earlier as the sun had started to creep onto the double falls.

Next we went to Watson Falls which involved a 1 mile round trip with significant elevation gain. The problem is that as you approach this massive 294 foot drop of water, it is nearly impossible to photograph the entire fall in one image. A better suggestion is to photograph the very top or very bottom of the fall. I opted for the bottom.

Finally, we took a rather long 20 mile detour off of OR 138 to see Warm Springs Falls. It was a one way paved road followed by a one way gravel road for a couple of miles. No problem for our little Jeep Compass, but a little harrowing nonetheless. It’s a very short hike, but we were a little late at 2 PM, so it was pretty bright.

There are quite a few other waterfalls along this highway that we missed, but these are a good sample of what you might see.