Every autumn, Chinook salmon swim back up the Rogue River to their birthplaces in the Rogue and Illinois Valley rivers and streams to spawn and continue the salmon life cycle. We invite you to join KS Wild staff on this easy walk to look for salmon returning home to spawn in the Applegate River. You will learn about where they live, their behavior, and ways we can help them along their journey home.
This is an easy 1-mile round trip walk along the river bank. No elevation gain. Kids are welcome!
Salmon Facts:
Fall is a great time to get outside in the region to watch salmon return inland from the Pacific Ocean up rivers to their natal watersheds. Of the six species of Pacific salmon, two occur in the Rogue basin: the Chinook salmon (also known as king), Oncorhynchus tshawytscha, and the coho salmon (also known as silver), Oncorhynchus kisutch. All of the Pacific salmon are anadromous, meaning that these fish are born in fresh water and then make their way to the ocean where they live for a period of time, reaching maturity, before returning to the freshwater streams and rivers where they were born.
There, the fish reproduce by laying their eggs in nests known as redds, and completing their lifecycle, thus rejoining the inland food web and contributing their bodies as nutrients to the surrounding water and land. The Rogue River and its tributaries support some of the largest salmon populations in Oregon. In addition to salmon, other anadromous fish in the Rogue include steelhead trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss, the anadromous form of rainbow trout, and Pacific lamprey, Entosphenus tridentatus.