Ranging in elevation from 3,200 to 6,878 feet, the 33,000 acre Rogue-Umpqua Divide Wilderness separates the drainages for the famed Rogue and Umpqua rivers. The wilderness is located 80 miles southeast of Roseburg.
This is a mysterious and beautiful area of high mountain meadows and hill-hugging mists. During the spring, abundant wildflowers welcome the season. In the fall, vivid colors mark the changing season. This is a land of deep forests and sub-alpine meadows. For those who want to experience large old-growth forests, Acker Divide and Cripple Camp trails fit the bill. Nearly all the trails in the Rogue-Umpqua Divide pass through sub-alpine meadows. These beautiful meadows change with the seasons. In the spring, they are a pallet of lush green grass, wildflowers, and trees in bud. In the summer, the smell of horsemint fills the air as hummingbirds dart from flower to flower.
The range of several conifers meet in this wilderness creating a diverse pallet including sugar pine, grand fir, mountain hemlock, western white pine, incense cedar, subalpine fir, western redcedar, white fir, ponderosa pine, Douglas-fir, Alaska-cedar, shasta red fir, lodgepole pine, pacific silver fir, western hemlock, and whitebark pine.
Numerous trails throughout the wilderness take visitors to many lakes, meadows, and breathtaking vistas. Early local resident O.C. Brown described the area around Fish Lake "on all sides the mountains clad in dense, evergreen forest, rise like a wall and are crowned by massive peaks of frowning rocks, that stand like feudal castles and for countless ages have mirrored their bold outlines in the sylvan lake".