Enjoy a beautiful drive through the picturesque Cow Creek drainage on your way to one of the most interesting campsites in Umpqua.
Located under a bluff and surrounded by a forest of cedar, pine, and madrone, Devil’s Flat is a small campground with three campsites, a bevy of hiking opportunities, and a handful of historic landmarks.
On the north side of the campground, you can see the stone ruins of an old water fixture built by the CCC “Fire-Eaters” in the 1930s. On the south side is the old Devil's Flat Guard Station, where you’ll find a Ranger Cabin built in 1915 and a 1920s-era horse barn. On a fir tree near the Ranger Cabin, you can also see the tiki carving that gave Devil’s Flat its name. This good luck sign was carved by Ike French, a Hawaiian man who moved to the Cow Creek Valley region in the 1850s with his brother Sampson French; later, sometime around the 1930s, the tiki was misinterpreted by a new crop of settlers, who gave the area the name Devil’s Flat.
As for hiking opportunities, Devil’s Flat offers easy access to beautiful hikes of varying length and difficulty:
- Cow Creek Falls Trail #1422 makes a 0.3 mile loop along cascading Cow Creek Gorge.
- Elk’s Skull Bluff Trail #1428A makes a 0.5 mile loop from the campground to a vantage point of the Upper Cow Creek drainage.
- Maranatha Trail #1422A travels 1.5 miles to a viewpoint over the Cow Creek drainage.
- Devil’s Flat Trail #1428 leads 5 miles to the top of Red Mountain.
Facilities
- 3 campsites with picnic tables and fire pits
- No drinking water
- Vault toilet
