God's Valley

After a long dirt road with lots of mud and pot holes, we finally made it to a clearing with a fire pit. The first thing we noticed right in the camp was very fresh cougar scat. We decided to make a large fire right away to scare the cougar away. That seemed to work but it did attract some very scary locals. They drove up as soon as it got dark and pretty much took over the camp. They had guns and seemed to be on drugs. It was straight out of deliverance but on meth. I was scared out of my mind because they seemed like they were just waiting for the opportunity to rob us so we left in the middle of the night. It was a terrifying experience I do not recommend this spot to anyone.

We explored the area earlier in the day and found a nice spot about 3 miles into the forest by a river. Had to get some groceries and do other shopping but we came back around five and we're able to pull our SUV quite aways away from the road near the fire circle. One of us set up the fire while the other set up a hammock and stated unloading materials. As it got darker and we started to cook our dinners we started to hear noises but just thought we were being paranoid. By the time we finished dinner around 8 or 9pm we knew we had heard some sort of animal and started to pack up for the night. We had almost everything in the car when one of us definitely heard the loud growl of a cougar. We had no idea where the animal was but we hopped in our SUV as quickly as possible and left. We saw 3 deer as we were getting off of the gravel road and back onto the paved drive including 1 injured doe. But we found a quiet parking lot to sleep in for the night and tried to call the park services the next morning. We couldn't get a hold of anyone over the phone so we went to a different state park and went to the ranger office. They said they couldn't help us go back up there and get our stuff but that there had been a hunter attacked by a cougar in that area about 6 months ago. But they said the cougar would be long gone so it would be safe for us to go back. So we did and retrieved the last of our items while watching our backs the entire time. The only weird noises we heard when we returned were bird chirps but with further research we realized those were probably cougar chirps...
The moral of the story don't go there (at least to that spot) if you don't have a gun or some other full-proof way of protecting yourself from cougars. It was really beautiful right by the creek but we didn't take many pictures. We figured we'd take them in the morning but after our experience the previous night we didn't want to stick around very long to find out if the cougar was still around.

Not for the faint of heart, short on time or long of trailer, the access to road to get back to this incredibly secluded spot is all like, "Hey, I'm a washed out, rough as a tank tread, winding long dirt road, and not afraid to tell the world."

Maybe not the world, but the rare camper who meanders back to this spot, anyway.

Once you've made the trek, this small, unmarked campsite is a large grassy area (or mud pit, depending on the season) to the right of the road, amidst one of the clearings where loggers have been hard at work, and is relatively easy to miss if you don't keep a keen eye.

You'll know you're here when you see the small toilet in the forest behind where you can camp.

A creek runs through the forest behind as well, and their are some gorgeous big trees that have thus far survived Oregon's quest to make all of China's paper.

If getting seriously deep into the forest is your idea of "real camping", and you had your heart set on this area, it's one of the few places to pay nothing on Oregon's northern coast.