Trailbridge Reservoir, Power Plant, And Smith Reservoir

This week I happened to get five days off in a row (not good for getting hours at work...) and we took advantage of that to visit our friends in Roseburg and then stop at my SIL outside of Eugene for a night. 

After our fabulous visits we decided to stop at a few of the falls along the way home. The first place we stopped at was the Trailbridge Power Plant and the Smith Reservoir. 

There's no falls at this particular spot but it was a very nice and private area. 

We had to drive by the power plant under this one lane road winch platform contraption. If you look closely at the bottom you can see it is on a sort of track so it can be moved back and forth, presumably to service parts of the power plant. 

When we stopped to take a closer look at the power plant this gate was open and I took a couple steps down the path.  All the gates were open but I got a little nervous since it's not in my nature to go against the rules. I went back out and just took the pictures from outside.

One of the interesting things was this ever-running faucet just outside the gate.

This is the power plant from across the way. If I had gone ahead and been the terrible lawbreaker I could have been I would have been at the path on the bottom near the water.

Eventually we made our way past the powerhouse and back through the canyon to the reservoir dam. It reminded me of a place in Germany we used to visit on occasion. It was called the Felsenmeer and we used to climb from the bottom to the top and back again. There were paths on either side for the less adventurous and the people who couldn't leap from boulder to boulder. As I recall there was a cafe at the top. But anyway, the rocks on the dam were not as large.

And here is the Smith Reservoir. It was so calm and quiet. Check out the perfect mirror image.

On the way back out we stopped at one of the camp areas and took a trail to see the Smith River below.

The trail is part of the McKenzie River Trail.

Downstream.

Upstream.

On the bridge.

And on the way out we wondered if this might be the only surviving pay phone booth in the Western United States??