Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuges
Klamath Basin, near Klamath Falls
Klamath Falls, OR
One of the great bird gatherings in North America, where much of the Pacific Flyway funnels through a chain of marshes and the largest winter flock of bald eagles in the lower forty-eight roosts in the pines.
The Klamath Basin is one of the great bird crossroads of North America. Where southern Oregon meets northern California, a chain of shallow lakes and marshes sits astride the Pacific Flyway, the migratory highway that runs from the Arctic to South America, and at the peaks of spring and fall a large share of the flyway's waterfowl stop here to rest and feed. Six national wildlife refuges protect what remains, several of them on the Oregon side around Klamath Falls.
This is also a story of how much was lost, and how early the fight to save a piece of it began. A century ago the basin held an estimated ten million waterfowl, one of the largest concentrations on earth, across more than three hundred thousand acres of wetland. Draining for farms took most of it. In 1908 President Theodore Roosevelt set aside Lower Klamath as the first waterfowl refuge in the United States, and the refuges you can visit today are the surviving heart of what was once called the Everglades of the West.
What Guests Love
- Sheer numbers: at spring and fall peaks, clouds of ducks, geese, and tundra swans fill the sky
- The largest wintering concentration of bald eagles in the lower forty-eight states
- Driving the quiet auto-tour routes with the marsh at eye level from your car window
- Paddling the Upper Klamath canoe trail through a maze of open water and tule reeds
Worth Knowing
- Bring binoculars or a spotting scope and go at dawn or dusk, when the birds move most
- The basin's water is stretched thin between farms, fish, tribes, and birds, so a given marsh can be full or dry depending on the year; check refuge conditions before a long drive
- The complex straddles the state line, so two of the biggest units, Lower Klamath and Tule Lake, sit just over the border in California
- Fall through early spring is the show; summer is quieter, hot, and buggy in the marshes
Details
Klamath Falls, OR
Learn about Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuges
The people of the marsh
For thousands of years this basin was home to the Klamath, the Modoc, and the Yahooskin Paiute, who together make up the Klamath Tribes. In their own language they were the maklaks, the people, and their lives moved with the water: they fished from canoes with two-pronged spears, hunted the same waterfowl that still darken the sky, and gathered tule reeds for houses and mats.
Their signature food came straight from the marsh. Wocus, the seed of the yellow pond lily, grew across thousands of acres of the Klamath Marsh; women gathered it by canoe and ground it into a flour so dependable that it carried people through lean seasons. The Klamath Tribes are still here, centered near Chiloquin at the north end of the basin, and the water and birds of these refuges remain part of a living culture, not just a wildlife story.
A refuge born from loss
The wetlands you see are a fraction of what the basin once held. Beginning in the early 1900s, a federal reclamation project drained lakes and marshes to open the rich black soil to farming, and the vast waterfowl flocks crashed as their habitat disappeared. The refuges were carved out of what was left, with Lower Klamath protected in 1908 and Tule Lake added in 1928.
Today six units make up the complex, including Oregon's Upper Klamath, Klamath Marsh, and Bear Valley refuges alongside Lower Klamath and Tule Lake across the line. Their future is not settled. In dry years the same water is claimed by farms, by endangered suckers sacred to the Klamath Tribes, by salmon downstream, and by the birds, and some marshes have gone bone dry. Visiting is a way to see both the abundance that remains and how hard-won it is.
The birds
Timing is everything. In spring and fall the refuges fill with migrating waterfowl, and at the peak the count runs into the hundreds of thousands: pintails, wigeon, teal, snow and white-fronted geese, and tundra swans, rising and settling in great restless rafts. Spring also brings nesting colonies of American white pelicans, grebes with their running courtship dances, and herons and egrets stalking the shallows.
Winter belongs to the eagles. The basin hosts the largest gathering of wintering bald eagles in the lower forty-eight, drawn by the waterfowl, and on a cold clear morning you can watch them stream out of their night roost at Bear Valley at first light, dozens of birds lifting off the ridge at once. Hawks, falcons, and northern harriers work the fields all season long.
How to visit, and when
The easiest way in is by car. Lower Klamath and Tule Lake both have auto-tour routes, gravel loops where you drive slowly with the marsh right outside the window and use the vehicle as a blind, since birds tolerate a car far better than a person on foot. Upper Klamath, on the Oregon side, has a marked canoe trail for paddlers who want to slip quietly into the reeds.
Come in the cooler half of the year. Fall migration, winter eagles, and the spring push are the reasons to make the trip, and dawn and dusk are when the marsh comes alive. Summer is hot, still, and thick with mosquitoes, and low water can leave some units dry. Bring binoculars, dress warm for early mornings, and give yourself time to simply sit and watch.
Closest Boutels
The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.
Things to Do Near Klamath Falls
Klamath Falls
In town
The basin's hub, with the Favell Museum of Western art and Native artifacts and a walkable historic downtown near the south shore of Upper Klamath Lake.
Lava Beds National Monument
About an hour south, in California
A rugged volcanic landscape of lava-tube caves and the stronghold where the Modoc made their stand in the Modoc War of 1872 and 1873.
Crater Lake National Park
About an hour and a half north
The deepest lake in the United States, an impossibly blue caldera left by the collapse of an ancient volcano.