Near drowning at the Picket Fence - and a back story

PK and I returned yesterday from a three-day 35-mile rafting trip on Oregon's Wild and Scenic Rogue River. Our group of six included two novice river runners in inflatable kayaks (IK),—a recent high school graduate, and his 16-year-old sister.  Our trip was fun, successful, and safe. The young man debated about running Blossom Bar, a class 4 rapid, that he'd never been through. The adults made the decision for him: get a good sense of the rapid's power and the path through it, and run it next time. If you choose. My sense was that he was relieved.

It got me thinking about a 2015 trip when I witnessed another young man almost succumb to Blossom Bar's  Picket Fence, the row of rocks in the rapid that have given rafters and IKers serious trouble through the decades.  Rafts get stuck, drift boats bend around the rocks, and paddlers in IKs go over the fence and can't get out. That's what happened to the young man. 

The Rogue River's 35-mile Wild and Scenic section is touted as a "family" trip with all but three rapids falling into class one, two, or three difficulty level meaning that with reasonable safety measures, including wearing life jackets and staying sober, people who get dumped into the river won't drown.

But a young man on a recent Rogue trip nearly did drown at Blossom Bar, one of two class four rapids. Although pinned underwater at the rapid's Picket Fence, he survived. That's good. What isn't good is when we fail to take a lesson from near-disasters, which is why I'm writing this post. I invited the near-drowning victim to tell his story, which follows. I also have a personal tale about running Blossom and the Rogue in general.

A paddleboat crew stares down the Picket Fence in Blossom Bar during a 2014 mid-June trip. The "fence" comprises a line of boulders, some submerged, some not, that present a significant danger at all water levels. To miss the "fence" boaters, must navigate right, duck into an eddy behind the large rock, then spill over a narrow pour-off not visible in this photo. 

But first, let's clear up the idea that Blossom Bar is invariably deadly. It is not. Many reports state that 99.9 percent of everybody who runs the rapid does so without significant trouble.

Check out these two excellent articles:
Blossom Bar is a dangerous rapid, a column by outdoor writer Zach Urness, formerly of the Grants Pass Daily Courier.
Recent history of drownings on the Rogue River by Daily Courier's Jeff Duewel.

A 2013 rundown that starts with how Telfer's Rock in Mule Creek Canyon got its name. 

I have personally navigated Blossom Bar more than 100 times over the years, most often rowing a raft, and have never had trouble with the Picket Fence, although I've hit plenty of rocks below and almost flipped once. PK has run it successfully even more times. We have, however, witnessed numerous accidents at the "fence", serious inconveniences that have resulted in rafters abandoning their crafts, jumping into the rapid, and in one case, stabbing the raft to deflate a tube and thus send it spiraling into the current.

(Interestingly, son Chris Korbulic rowed a trip that ended July 27, 2015, just a few days after our trip. When he went through Blossom on July 26, a bunch of rafting gear was on the Picket Fence. In a rafting accident the day before, a large boat got wrapped there and all four adults aboard an abandoned ship. Before they left the scene, they planned for the raft to be rescued and emptied a lot of the gear onto the fence. Apparently, two men jumped into passing rafts but the two women were too scared to do so and spent the night on the rock! When Chris went through, the boat was still stuck on a rock in mid-rapid, and attempts to rescue it were underway. Chris didn't know exactly how the women escaped.)

That said, the majority of drownings in the Rogue's Wild and Scenic section do occur at Blossom Bar, and the victims are invariably sober, wearing life jackets, and most get "pinned" in powerful hydraulics created by the horizontal line of rocks dubbed the Picket Fence.

This mid-July trip was the first I've been on in 30+ years when someone in my group got snagged by the fence.

The potential drowning victim is an athletic 25-year-old from the East Coast who has lived in Oregon for a year. He asked to remain anonymous, citing the Internet's power to store information forever and nefarious people's capacity to misuse it.

He plays water polo and is a strong swimmer but has scant whitewater experience. On our trip, he paddled an IK (inflatable kayak). Our group included an experienced hardshell kayaker and a skilled canoeist, who coached the novice boater. He had capsized his IK a few times on Day 1 of our 3-day trip, but successfully negotiated the Day 2 rapids, including the Class 4 Mule Creek Canyon. He says:

Midway through the second day, we pulled out of Mule Creek Canyon and I was feeling confident after easily navigating the "White Snake" and "Coffeepot" rapids after they had been talked up a fair amount. Approaching Blossom Bar, we pulled off the river to scout the rapid for at least 15 minutes. I was told exactly what I needed to do and given the option to walk around if I wasn't feeling up to it. 

We had practiced my "right hand eddy turns" several times throughout the morning. We watched a few rafts go through, navigating the Picket Fence and the area below, and making it look pretty straightforward. I don't think we saw any smaller crafts go through while we were scouting. 

Note: That's because most commercial outfitters no longer allow passengers to take IKs through the tricky and potentially lethal upper section of Blossom Bar. Instead, clients walk around the rapid. MK

Eventually, I got in behind the experienced kayaker and followed close. The plan was to start left, then paddle hard to get into the eddy to buy time before navigating a narrow slot at the right end of the Picket Fence.

A screengrab* of IKs on a different trip negotiating the entrance to Blossom Bar and past the Picket Fence. This photo was taken at a higher water level than we had. But in any case, from the top of the rapid, the eddy (green relatively quiet water) that must be reached is not visible. The current on the left is extremely powerful.

It was made clear to me how dangerous the Picket Fence could be and how important it was to get into that eddy. I saw it approaching, but I was out of position and was sucked directly between the last two boulders where a post of sorts sticks up, to form a V. I tried to push off,  but my boat climbed the rocks, tipping me out.

What followed was a fight for my life, and it was instantly apparent that was what it was. I was sucked under my boat between the V-shaped boulders. I struggled to get to the surface, clinging to my boat with one hand, instinctively grasping at the floating thing above me to pull myself up. It didn't work. 

I fought for air four or five times in what seemed like a minute but was more like 20 seconds. I couldn't get my head above the water. The sensation of being sucked down, and fighting repeatedly to get air, was terrifying. I could hear my kayaker companion screaming to let go of the IK, so I did, and quickly caught a breath and found myself out of the water crouching on a rock. Keep in mind, all of this is happening incredibly quickly and was overwhelming. 

Whew! He had escaped the Picket Fence but still had a little problem. 

Anyways, when I stood on the rock at the end of the Picket Fence, I was in a bit of a shock about what had just happened. A whitewater canoeist in our group was near, and I could hear him yelling directions. But my kayaker companion was too far away to be heard.

I understood that swimming was the only way out. Getting back into the water was the last thing I wanted to do, especially as I was unsure about whether I would get sucked down again. The prospect of the swim after the near drowning was much scarier than the swim itself. I slipped into the river, floated through a couple of turbulent areas, then swam hard into the eddy on the left bank where my kayaker companion was waiting. 

I hadn't witnessed when the IK capsized and the young man disappeared beneath the "fence." But I was among those who watched first with trepidation and then amazement, at what happened next. Most people in his situation, when forced to "swim" the surly rapid, actually float with their feet in front of them to ward off rocks, working their way to one side of the river or the other. Not this guy.

His first adrenalin-fueled swim was to river left, maybe a third of the river's width, to reach his kayaking buddy. Then, after they discussed his options, he turned around and swam from one side of Blossom Bar to the other, power stroking the extreme and erratic current in between eddies. I held my breath the whole time. Especially when a commercial raft cut in front of him as he rested behind a rock. The canoeist waited on the other side with a throw rope and the kayaker stayed close to him during his heroic swim. He says:

Fortunately, frequent eddies broke up the current and provided rest stops, which allowed me to make it almost straight across to a raft waiting for me, and I didn't need the throw rope there either. In retrospect, it may have been possible to bushwhack/hike down on the left side, but we didn't consider that in the moment, and I felt ok about the swim.

A raft of rubberneckers blocked me on the last leg of my swim across, which was frustrating and got me extremely upset. If you see someone in the water, either offer to help or get the hell out of the way! Finally I made it to the far shore to one of our rafts and I climbed aboard.

I knew the person rowing the commercial raft. She didn't see him. It is uncommon to see someone swimming across the rapid.  She was fixated on the people in her group who'd walked around and were waiting to be picked up by her.  

The swimmer's brother and I were anxiously waiting in a raft for him to hop into if his swim was successful. I cringed when the hapless guide cut him off. But I got a front row seat to one of the most remarkable athletic feats I've ever seen. I rowed the two down the remainder of the boulder-strewn rapid where our relieved group 

This paddler has successfully steered around the Picket Fence and is navigating the boulder field that comprises the rest of the rapid. Photo taken in June 2014, a trip that sent four inexperienced boaters in IKs through the rapid without incident. The water level at that time was higher than on our recent trip. The red IK is just above where our heroic swimmer powered across the rapid.

 

Overall, it was a true near-death experience that I survived due to good luck, strong lungs/legs, and good advice at a timely moment from my experienced kayaker companion. I also got excellent support from the rest of the group to allow me to return to normalcy the next day and enjoy paddling the tamer rapids on the way out.

                                                     THE LESSON

If I return to Blossom Bar in an IK I would have a 90% chance of navigating it successfully. On the other hand, I have a lot of fun things I like to do not involving rivers, and I would like to continue doing them. It's not worth it to prove to myself, or anyone else, that I can do it.

Next time I would absolutely walk around or ride in a raft, and would recommend others do so until they have lots more experience and practice than I did that day. There are a lot of fun things to do and see on the Wild and Scenic trip, and skipping Blossom Bar would not take away from that at all. I also want to reiterate that it was my informed choice to try it and my mistake(s) that put me in that position.

In other words, next time he doesn't need to prove to himself or anybody else that he's man enough to take it on again. Amen!

Ok. My puny little story. 
How was it that I was rowing a raft in Blossom Bar after giving up rowing about 8 years ago? My difficult decision then had an impact on an annual women's river trip that had continued for 18 years during which I was one of four women rowers. I attempted to sort through my conflicting emotions in this August 2009 blog post and I still stand behind the major reason, which was that I just got sick of river trips of all sorts.

I now go once a year, maybe, as a passenger. I have no regrets, except that I lost my identity as a stud-woman. You’d be surprised at the people who marvel when women can do things done most often by men. You'd also be surprised at how cool it is to be a stud woman if only pretend. I knew it was only pretending because every trip I was sick with anxiety before running that damn rapid. Seriously. I did run it more than 100 times, most often without a hitch, but I never got over the anxiety. And I hate anxiety.

On day two of our recent trip, a novice rower was hurt in an incident unrelated to river running. I was the only person who could jump in and take the oars. In the meantime, he replaced me as a passenger in the raft piloted by PK. Several hours later, he recovered and was ready to row the mostly flatwater to camp.

In the meantime, I was navigating relatively easy class two and three rapids, but I knew class 4 Mule Creek and Blossom Bar were coming. I'd rowed Mule Creek last summer when the novice rower, in whose raft I was a passenger, got pitched out. I had to take the oars, get the boat into position to pick her up, then row the rapid. I was surprised and relieved to learn that I could still do it.

And so on the recent trip I found myself dipping the oars alone on the long flat mile between Mule Creek and Blossom Bar, deliberating whether or not to row Blossom. Actually, I knew I didn't want to. But my not rowing meant that  PK would have to row our raft, "park" it ASAP after passing the Picket Fence, then walk over the hot steep rocks to where I was in a holding pattern.  What is a good husband for if he can't hot steep rocks to rescue his wife?

He said he was good with it, and when I saw his face on the rocks above me, I knew it was time to boogie down the right bank to where our raft was parked about a quarter of the way through the rapid. But PK handled the hardest part.

Last words about this: I'm 70 years old. I will likely not row Blossom Bar again. Unless I really must. If I do, somebody will probably video it, and, depending upon the outcome, I will either be the "amazing elderly woman who rowed Blossom Bar" or the "the poor elderly woman stuck on the Picket Fence" or wrapped around a rock below. Or worse.

                        I think I'll settle for no amazement and go on my ordinary way.

I love river camping but not river running. Took me about 
20 years to figure that out.

SOMETHING FUN TO WATCH

                                                
           A video of another trip at Blossom Bar at the same water level we experienced.  

Check out the next video in this link above, too, the one entitled "Blunder at Blossom Bar."  No terrible outcomes, but lots of laughs. This will alert you to the rapid's danger and how hapless rowers can run amok. Or even non-hapless ones. Shit happens, even when you're experienced. Especially at Blossom Bar.

Previous  Ordinary Life posts about the Rogue

Camp cooking on the river

Korbulic family history regarding the Rogue

Bears on the river

Second thoughts about running the Rogue

Rafting Uganda's White Nile - Class V

The first rapid was a Class 5 with a tricky entrance to a 12-foot waterfall. I'm in the yellow helmet, and PK is directly on my left. Kara Blackmore, our unofficial tour guide, is in the back in front of Josh, the amazing local river guide. In addition to Josh, we three were the only people on this raft with any previous rafting experience. Which goes to show, with a skilled guide, anybody can do this!! 

We knew from the get-go that, as parents of Chris Korbulic, we'd have no excuse, other than cowardice, for not jumping into a paddle raft for a Class 5 commercial trip on the White Nile near Jinja, Uganda. (For the uninitiated, Class 5 means that flipping is likely.) Not that cowardice wasn't a factor. PK had sorta-kinda committed, and I was "maybe" but then PK, looking at the unfavorable weather forecast, mentioned to Kara, "If it's raining, I probably won't go."

Kara, Chris' good friend and the volunteer tour guide who'd arranged 12 days in Uganda for us, was stunned. "What? You'll man up and go!" she insisted. "What's a little rain?"  

Indeed. What's a little rain? I "womaned" up and signed on as well. 

Our outfitter, Nile River Explorers, picked us up close to our lodging way too early in the morning, and after about a half-hour open-air bus ride later, we were greeted at the company's staging area with a hearty breakfast of Rolex, fruit, coffee, and various carbohydrates. What's a Rolex? A culinary discovery! I know you don't click on many links, but the Rolex link is about more than the Rolex. It's also about Ugandan street life and attitude. There we were outfitted with life jackets, helmets and paddles.  Another 40-minute drive and we were at the put-in.

The assembled paddle rafters getting the low-down on how to navigate the rapids. PK and I agreed it was the most thorough river safety briefing we'd ever heard. Then we were instructed to team up with people of like mind. Do you want to flip or not? NOT. We sorted into a raft of Australians, a family with no river experience who were not too fit looking. Still, PK and I were by far the oldest people in the entire group. I guess our elderly status is getting to be a badge of honor, because on this raft, we were, along with Kara, also the fittest. Not counting the guide, Josh, of course, in his own class of rippled readiness. He was ejected once and he sprang back into the raft as if he'd been propelled by an underwater cannon.

This is the first rapid,  a true Class 5. See that red object toward the top of the photo? That's a raft, and behind it is flat water where each of the five rafts was required to flip, then everybody aboard had to help right the overturned craft. The hardest part? Getting back into the dang raft unaided.  I think Kara was the only passenger on our boat who powered  herself into the raft. The rest of us whales needed assistance. Even all-muscles PK required a tiny boost. 

After getting hung up on rocks, we entered the first rapid in perfect position.

It's starting to look bad! And feel bad! But we're in great shape.

We hit the hole head on. Nobody fell out. This all happened in a flash. These great photos were captured by a pro working with Nile River Explorers. When the trip ended, raft mates decided whether or not to join forces and purchase photo CDs and/or DVDs. 

Believe it or not, this was fun!

You can see the guide powering with his one little paddle to keep the raft straight and we came out of the hole in great shape. I guess everybody swallowed some Nile River, but were none the worse.

The young woman behind me, unfortunately, lost a toenail . She unloaded onto the safety raft, the one with the blue kayak, where she spent the rest of the day with her bleeding and bandaged foot elevated. I think she was relieved to be in the safety raft. She blanched at the safety talk above this rapid about what to do, if the raft should flip and you get sucked into a downward spiral. What you do is bring your knees to your chest and wait to pop up to to the surface. The message: you are not in control here.

The river trip was 15.5 miles, (25 kilometers) long, but it didn't seem that far. Seven rapids, Class 3-4, followed the first, which was the most challenging. We had lots of time to float and enjoy the scenery and the big waves. Lunch on board was the most delicious-ever giant pineapples cut with a few deft machete strokes and passed to passengers in thick sticky wedges. We also enjoyed cookie-type treats labeled as "Glucose." Well, that's honesty in packaging.

This may have been the rapid where the guide was jettisoned. But he quickly reclaimed the helm.

What?! Kara is going overboard.

As a frequent river-runner, she claims that the final rapid of this trip, the Nile Special, is best enjoyed when you're one with the river. Maybe...next time? Incidentally, Nile Special is also a popular Ugandan beer, which was offered in abundance at the end of this trip along with a delicious buffet.

By the way, our boat never flipped, but other boat upsets were frequent. I don't know whether we got lucky with our guide, or if the other, equally skilled guides, dropped into holes sideways on purpose.  Before one especially tricky rapid,which Josh said was better left unexplored via immersion, he gave explicit directions regarding the "ball -up to avoid getting sucked to the bottom" direction but ended his pre-rapid instructions with this: Be ready for anything. Shit happens. That seems to me a good advice for life in general.

Addendum: A dam that would drown this beautiful whitewater section of the Nile River is in the works, but is not a done deal. The dam would destroy the tourist industry in Jinja, whose main tourist draw is the river and various activities associated with it—especially the rafting and kayaking parts. It makes me sick to think that the wonderful Ugandans we met on this trip (as guides and the photographer, mostly) would be out of jobs. This link describes the situation, and introduces readers to some of the people whose lives have been transformed by the opportunities afforded by their river jobs. 

Camp Cooking on the River

This simple but delicious camp meal was a breeze. I marinated the London broil and made the quinoa, avocado and mango salad at home. Our garden peas were stir fried tender crisp with butter and spring onions. 

I wasn't always a food Nazi, but now that I am, kinda, I see no reason to eat anything camping that I wouldn't ordinarily consume. PK and I are moving toward "later life", but we still sleep on the ground in a tent, stumble outside in the dark seeking nighttime bladder relief, and cook under what some might consider primitive conditions so we can spend a few days rafting and camping on the banks of Oregon's Wild and Scenic Rogue River, which is literally in our backyard. We've also done self-guided trips on the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon, on the Snake River between Oregon and Idaho, and on Idaho's Middle Fork of the Salmon through the Frank Church Wilderness. Every trip, we have to cook, and, most often, enjoy (or endure) the cooking of our companions. 
 A few of you may have read a post I wrote in August 2009 in which I declared a hiatus from river trips. Obviously I have come around. I thoroughly enjoyed the trip described here. Of course, we had benevolent weather and there were just four of us. It was heaven. It will be my one river trip this year. More than that, and I could get sick of river trips for the reasons described in the earlier post.

But back to camp cooking. We do not suffer. Through the years we've developed a proper kitchen that weighs a ton and is getting harder to sling around as the years accumulate. However, once it's set up, it's deluxe.

This custom-made aluminum box holds enough cookware, cutlery and

dinnerware for preparing breakfast, lunch and dinner for about 16 people. 

But eeeuuwww. I don't like those big groups anymore.

Fellow camper and friend of 30-some years, Linda Shonk, is up at the crack heating water for our morning beverages in the camp kitchen. The rectangular thing on the ground by the camp chairs is a fire pan, a mandated piece of equipment to save beaches from fire rings. We barbecued our London broil over it, using a portable grill. The small boat between the rafts got away from another group. We secured it on the beach for them to find. Hope they did!

We haul a giant cooler packed with anything we want to eat or drink. And I mean anything. On one trip, another couple prepared a salt-encrusted prime rib roast on a 100-degree day! (They later divorced, and that may have been the reason.) We've had stuffed cornish game hens, eggs Benedict with hollandaise made from scratch, pork roast, lasagna, cherry cobbler, chocolate cake—whatever will fit into a Dutch oven, over a grill or into industrial-sized cooking pots or fry pans.

The homemade table folds up as does the muslin utensil organizer.

As usual, rocks become part of the kitchen. 

Here's PK, always ready to ply his companions with quality tequila.
After the big rapids, of course. 

Cocktail hour after a tough day of floating class 2 and 3 rapids. Linda and I also hiked several miles on the Rogue River Trail. Note the crowds. For an appetizer we made fresh guacamole with plenty of lime, salt and chopped sweet onion eaten with blue corn chips. 

Our home for the night in our vintage Moss tent. Ahhhh.

PK packing up the kitchen on day two as we prepare to move downstream.

Here I am at our second and last camp enjoying a cold drink and cool river on a hot day.
My bikini days are long over, by the way. I'm now a cover-up girl.

A bear trip on the Rogue River

This mama and her cubs were our companions for two days as we camped at Brushy Bar on the lower section of the Wild and Scenic Rogue River in late August. It was a joy to share the river corridor with them without fearing that they'd raid our kitchen — or our tent to chomp us in the neck in the middle of the night. This photo was taken from our camp across the river. But the next day, this trio was with us, dining on abundant blackberries alongside our camp. Like maybe 20 feet away. Except for an occasional curious stare, they ignored us.

Here's the wimpy-looking bear fence at Brushy Bar.

I love it when somebody has an idea that seems improbable, and others pooh-pooh it, and then the idea turns out to actually work. Such is the case with the electrified bear-deterring enclosures on the lower Wild And Scenic Rogue River. The idea is you keep a clean camp, place your coolers and trash inside a low-profile electrified fence, and after bears get zapped trying to cross it without realizing that they could probably just step over it, they learn that those delectable odors are not so desirable after all.

This bear is maybe 20 feet away from the edge of our camp. It was so fun watching her strip the berries from the bush. Her cubs were nearby, learning the ropes. Imagine weighing 250 pounds or more and living off berries and insects, and that's during August,  the bounty time of year.

Then they go on to be natural bears and devour berries, grubs, insects, shoots, birds' eggs, an occasional fawn, and so on. 

It used to be that problem bears on the Rogue—that is bears who got addicted to eating human food—punctured boats and destroyed coolers and scared the crap out of people. This went on for years. Some of the more determined bears ended up dead, shot by government workers trying to protect the public. The Tate Creek area was infamous for cooler-raiding bruins, and I remember seeing campers in this area repairing their rafts after bear invasions. I personally made an foolish decision not to remove a large aluminum dry box from my raft when my river group stayed at Half Moon Lodge. I forgot about the Rice Krispie bars! The next morning I was horrified to see the top of the metal dry box bent at a 90-degree angle. A bear had easily defeated the nylon strap and a strong latch and escaped with the bars, which weren't any healthier for her than they are for us. Box repair cost $100 and my passengers, who had to sit on the box, which one of them first hammered into submission, were not quite as comfortable as they'd like.


During the 80's, 90's, and early 2000's, bear duty was part of river trip chores, which meant staying up to protect the coolers, garbage etc. from night marauders. Film cans—those now obsolete items—filled with ammonia and set atop food containers, were thought to deter bears. I'm not sure they were effective. But I am sure that on 100+ trips down the lower Rogue, I loved seeing bears along the bank—and one incredible time swimming in front of the raft—but didn't care for them in camp. They were a nuisance and, of course, a 250-pound black bear intent on eating your food, which you are trying to protect, is a potential physical threat. Although black bears, unlike grizzlies, are not known for attacking people.

Thanks to the bear fences, we can have our cake and coolers and our bears too. For more about the August 2010 Rogue River trip, check it out.

Get-away on Oregon's Illinois River with Four Wheel Camper

Every now and then PK and I look at each other, nod at our modest, but deluxe-to-us, little camping unit, and, without saying much,  agree. Let's go. Even for one night. It's so easy, after all those years of tent and river camping, to just throw a little food into the Four Wheel camper's refrigerator, fill the propane and water tanks, and hit the road. Someday we hope to do this for months at a time. For now, we must be content with a few days here and there. Most recently, it was to Southern Oregon's Illinois River, a clear rushing stream near (and in) the Kalmiopsis Wilderness. 

Here's what I love about our Four Wheel camper atop our Toyota Tundra: It's light and portable and easily handles narrow and awkward backroads full of potholes and rocks. It has a sink, running water, a refrigerator, a queen-sized bed, a CD/radio/iPod player, a heater, a two-burner propane stove, and battery powered electricity. Lights! Heat! What luxury! We can camp in unofficial campsites such as this. Not a single vehicle passed by because, well, the road sucks. We were a stone's throw from the turquoise splendor of the Illinois River. This spot is about 90 minutes from home. In case you're wondering about the obvious, we carry a portable toilet inside the camper, but use it only for number one. For the other, we have a shovel and good knees.

The Illinois River Falls. I recently learned that son Quinn came here often as a high school student, navigating a terrible road, to walk over the rough basalt, radiating heat waves, to reach the falls and the amazing swimming hole below. What a great teenage playground. I had no idea. Parents, of course, are often clueless. I grew up in North Dakota. We could not imagine such a wonder within easy striking distance. We did have the Mouse River, though. Aptly named.

This sign greeted us at the entry to one of our old stomping grounds, the road over the Chetco Pass leading to a trail to the beautiful Chetco River deep in the Kalmiopsis Wilderness. The Biscuit Fire in 2002 destroyed 500,000 acres and was the primary reason we haven't been back for so long.

Brush is coming back strong from the 2002 fire, but it doesn't replace

the forest that used to be here. Wait another 100 years or so.

For many years we backpacked to the clear and beautiful Chetco River on Memorial Day weekends, including in 1987 when Chris was not quite one and Quinn was not quite 10. I still can't believe we packed a baby in diapers into the wilderness! Rattlesnakes abounded and all Chris wanted to do was eat rocks and throw himself into the river. (This part has not changed.) It wasn't that much fun, to tell the truth. But on this day we went no further on the road to Chetco Pass, but instead hiked a short trail to the Illinois River Falls. 

Creek crossing on one of many short hikes along the Illinois River.

Parking lot at the trailhead to the Illinois River Falls.

The Illinois River rages big time during the winter but in late June 2013, swimming holes are placid and inviting.

Forty (!!!!) years ago friend Grace and I spent four or five days camping on this beach on the Illinois River as I was handling a major transition (build up to divorce) and she was building up to her own tumult. Then, this spot was a mining claim. Today it is hiking destination for an official trail. No more mining claim, and still a gorgeous swimming hole. When Grace and I camped here, we tried to oust a thick rattlesnake by dropping a boulder from a tree (which I somehow climbed with the rock) The boulder missed the snake. The snake looked bored. Amused, maybe? We moved our operations closer to the river. But then....there were the baby rattlers. 

Rare carnivorous pitcher plants native to the Kalmiopsis. 

There's a lot to be said for getting outta Dodge, even for a day or two. Not that I don't love home and garden and friends and every day ordinary life. But somehow, those get-aways trump just about everything. What's next? A quick trip to the Oregon coast coming soon. Damn, we're lucky to live in Southern Oregon.

Easy as falling off a .... Cliff?!

I wrote the article below in June 1979 while working for a weekly newspaper in Rogue River, OR, and was also learning to row whitewater. PK was a kayaker and we were on the front end of decades of river running. Even then, I obviously had all the river-running types correctly pegged. (Read on rafters, drift boaters, and so on.)

I ran across this old clipping recently and marveled at how prophetic! I had no idea that years later our own son would become a chief officer in the international club of crazy kayakers.

The 1979 newspaper piece:

There are five or so classifications of local boaters. 

Drift boaters get up before dawn, love rainy days, eat kipper snacks, and can fish for 48 uninterrupted hours. 

Muscle boaters have oiled bodies with fabulous tans. They wear stretch knit bathing suits Their crafts sparkle with chrome and their 600-HP motors pull water skiers at breakneck speed. They drink beer from cans and always have a barbecue to attend. 

Rafters laugh at the river. They wear pillow-sized life jackets and smile beneath sunburned noses. They like to sit around the campfire at night drinking Jack Daniels and swapping tales about who almost got pitched over the side. 

The orange torpedo captains carry books rating rapids on a scale of one to 20. They wear sneakers full of holes and their legs are tan in front and white in back. They are moderately nuts. 

Kayakers are the real crazies. While other boaters enjoy sitting around a friendly campfire roasting marshmallows, kayakers are at the edge of the circle chewing raw meat or in the woods digging for roots and grubs.  

In the morning while others are snug in warm sleeping bags, kayakers run naked, scaling dangerous cliffs and challenging local wildlife to feats of strength. 

The kayaker in the photos is typical of the breed. He is Rick Schlumpberger of Rogue River Outfitters, plunging off a cliff on the Illinois River in his kayak. Before this unretouched photo was taken, Schlumpberger had eaten a 17-pound raw steelhead and had taken a five-mile upstream swim. MK

If anybody knows Rick S., please pass this along. I think he'd get a kick out of it. Maybe he's still chewing raw meat outside of campfire circles?

Chris, "falling off a cliff" on Toketee Falls on the North Umpqua River
 just a couple hours from home.  2011.

A little family river history

PK built himself a fiberglass kayak in 1977 while I was pregnant with our first child. Quinn. Fiberglass construction and pregnant women do not mix owing to noxious glue fumes, which in this case, slammed through the kitchen window as kayak fabrication was being conducted beneath it.

But fiberglass was the only way to go kayaking in the 70s, which PK was hellbent on doing.

Hmm. Wonder where our son Chris got the kayaking bug?

The important thing was that if I didn't want to stay home while PK was on the river, I needed to row. (I was not tempted to kayak.) When our baby boy, Quinn, was about two I learned to navigate whitewater and thus became captain of what was known as the daycare raft. Chris was born when Quinn was nine, prolonging my daycare raft duties.

No complaints. I loved sharing the outdoors and the river with our boys (and their friends). Both went on innumerable day-trips with PK and me on the Rogue, as well as dozens of  3-day family trips on the Rogue's Wild and Scenic section. Those were some of our best days ever.

They grew to love it, although Quinn took a bit longer and was in his late 20s before he was declared "boatman of the year" when he rowed the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon on a 28-day private trip during which his father rowed, Chris kayaked, and I hiked to  the bottom of the canyon to camp with the group for a couple days.

Chris is a now professional kayaker. As I write this, he's just back from a recent expedition to Papua New Guinea, and he and his father are on a day trip on the home river. Makes me smile.

Passing it on. Quinn  Korbulic giving his son Noah his first rowing lesson on the Rogue.

PK rowing the Salmon River with me in front. He missed that bus-sized hole. 

Chris, then 15, earned the right to row his first rapid, a class 4 on the Snake River, by winning a bet with PK, who's having a white-knuckle ride. The bet: if PK throws a rock into the air, and Chris hits the rock with another before the first rock hits the ground, Chris takes the oars. We wouldn't let Chris kayak this river, which he wanted to do, because he would have been the only one in a kayak. Instead, he took on a big rapid with the raft. 

Kayaker Chris at 15.

In case you're wondering, where are the photos of me rowing? Well, I have a few in printed form but have yet to digitize.  My favorite is of going through Blossom Bar on the Rogue (Class 4) with friend Linda Shonk holding onto Chris, who was then about five or six. One of these days......

Related posts

Bears on the River
Loving the Rogue and why I mostly gave it up
Nomad kayaking son....Will I survive?

Southern Oregon - tourist territory - Rogue River

First a disclaimer. I am an unapologetic southern Oregon booster.
How'd I get so lucky to accidentally land here? Staying put, however,  has been one conscious choice after another since 1971.

Rogue River High School kids painted this mural, which greets anybody who swings into Rogue River  off the freeway.
(Click on the pic for full view.)

My Minnesota sister and niece visited for a week in May. Niece Lisa, age 48, hadn't been here since puberty, and she arrived loaded with a pent-up desire for Oregon-scapes. I was on. We started in my backyard - Rogue River, then moved on to the Applegate Valley, Grants Pass, It's a Burl, the Redwoods and the Oregon coast. I'll get to those later. It was a great week of being a tourist and seeing this part of the world with fresh eyes.
PK and I have lived a mile outside this small town for 35 years. It has its charms. One of them is this mural, and also the local non profit formed to finance additional murals. Supporting public art is a good sign in any area, and particularly in a small rural town.

Sara at Rogue River's Soup Station

Jalapeno burger with cilantro mayo. Wow.

The Soup Station is another local gem. Honestly, its culinary offerings rival the best in the Rogue Valley. Maybe anywhere. Surely, it is a regional highlight. Chief (only?) waiter, Sara, announced during our dinner visit a few days ago that "she was having a heart attack." That was, of course, an exaggeration, but she was flying around there like crazy. Word is getting out about this small family operation that makes almost everything in-house from quality ingredients, and somebody in the kitchen has "the knack" resulting in  entrees that are cooking-show quality. I had a cream cheese-stuffed chicken breast topped with chipotle raspberry sauce. My sister had a jalapeno burger on a pepper cheese bun. Yummm. The place doesn't have a website. You'll just have to go there.

A Rogue River view from the Greenway.

Another local plus is the Rogue River Greenway, a trail that starts under the bridge a mile from our house and will eventually connect Grants Pass to Ashland, with numerous communities in between, a motorized-vehicle-free distance of about 50 miles.  PK is on the Greenway Foundation board, as is good friend, Gail Frank, and like many others, they're working their backsides off to create this huge benefit for locals and visitors alike. In the meantime, the Greenway provides a six-mile round trip from Rogue River to Valley of the Rogue State Park and back. Walk, run, or bike. Don't forget the camera. And if you're a road biker, consider Ride the Rogue on September 18, 2010. This is a quality event (with an unbelievable spread at the finish) attracting over 1,000 riders and many locals who choose the family walks and rides. Me? I'm going for 65 miles.
Other great stuff about Rogue River:
Main Building Supply . Yes, it's a hardware store. No, it isn't a tourist attraction per se. But if you ever want to meet retail staffers who apparently have Ph.Ds in customer service, go there. People travel from other area towns to shop for feed and seed, nails and paint etc. just because of these people. And it's just one block from the Soup Station.

Yoga teacher Denise Elzea doing one of her famous poses.

Yoga at the Community Center Annex, Mondays and Fridays @ 8 a.m.
$7 drop-in and $6 if you buy a punch card for 10 classes. The class is about 75 to 80 minutes long. Because I've done yoga for about 10 years, and the last six with Denise in Rogue River, I too can do the splits! And many other poses that strengthen and flex. Having this class a mile from home is a definite quality-of-life bonus.
The Rogue River Library is also a bonus, along with the hand-carved totem pole out front done by local carver Larry Johnson.
Next: Mother's Day at Rogue Valley Retirement, and a wine tour in the Applegate Valley.

There you have it - the mighty Rogue!

This is the Rogue at Horseshoe Bend, just around the corner from where PK and I camped earlier this month on the first night of a three-day trip down the Wild & Scenic section. The Rogue is known as a "family river" because it has just two Class 4 rapids but the rest of it is easy Class 2 and a little tougher Class 3, and much of its 33 miles looks a lot like this - flat, green, and gorgeous. Isn't it weird and terrible that I'm bored with it?

Because it was just the two of us, as opposed to the group thing we've done on approximately 150 other Lower Rogue trips over the past 30 years (Is that why it no longer thrills?), we tucked in behind a shade rock on a patch of sand not previously considered camp-able beneath a wide bench that's the popular Horseshoe Bend camp. On this afternoon, it was swarmed by a diverse commercial group, by which I mean that there were black people! The first I've seen on the Rogue ever!

One sorry thing about Southern Oregon is that we're racially/culturally homogeneous. We do have a growing Hispanic population, but our gradations are more along the lines of white trash, whiter trash, Rushbots, and right-wingnut conservative NRA "we don't like them other news organizations" types, in addition to all of all us other really big, cool, and excited white people.

We waved at our neighbors en route to the potty, which is on the far side of their camp and a major benefit in hunkering down within walking distance (but not earshot) of another group. Without the potty, we're honor-bound to pack out our crap. And we have what we need to do it, thanks to the "checkers" at the Rand permit check-in office.

I remember the pre-permit and pre-regulation days—the late 1970s— when i was rowing an old yellow Maravia raft while PK kayaked his blue Perception Dancer, and we always went with groups of 6-16. We dug fire pits and toilet holes. We cleaned up after ourselves in those days without BLM regulators, but we were greeted at numerous camps by stinky toilet paper gardens and firepits studded with trash.

Because anybody could go on the river at any time and do anything (we heard gunshots, saw fireworks), we jockeyed for camps and once ended up settling after 8 p.m. for a patch of sand stinking of dead salmon and with the warning "BEARS!!" scratched into the sand. We heard them all night—we all slept together around the fire for protection—and in the morning a mama and two cubs rambled through our breakfast en route to the salmon. We clanged pots and pans and yelled to no avail, and finally settled on rock-top observation posts and enjoyed the wildlife show. It was one of my best river trips. But that was then.....

Even through I abandoned an 18-year tradition of annual women-only raft trips and have somewhat grudgingly agreed to go with PK at least once a year, here's what I still love about the Lower Rogue.

• The color of the water and the diamond-y sparkle of it in early morning, late afternoon.
  
• The way the river smells - rich & musty, yet fresh, especially going through rapids.
• The osprey, eagles, bears, fish, and even the rattlesnakes. I don't really LIKE seeing the snakes, but when I do, it is always a big surprise and it doesn't hurt to scream like that every now and then.
  
• Camping. I like camping almost no matter where. I like cooking outside and I don't even care if it's windy or raining, so long as there's a kitchen tarp.
• Being in the wilderness. The Rogue is designated as such, even though you'll see people, including huge commercial boatloads of them below Blossom Bar jetting up from the coast.
  
• It's mostly quiet, though, except for the wind and the water and the birds.
• It's familiar. It's our backyard. Our sons grew up here. Well, one grew up. The other is still either on a river somewhere or thinking about it.
  

What I don't like and why I gave it up, much to the consternation of my former women's trip raft passengers, Laurie & Jeanne, and PK:

• Sitting for five or six hours a day, even if I'm rowing. So it isn't just the Rogue that's off my list, but almost any river. This is the most important reason, and why I now hike much of the Rogue River trail while the rest of my group is rafting.
  
• The sun and excessive heat. I don't like it anymore and never was a sun worshipper.
  
• Schlepping heavy coolers and gear over rocks and up steep banks, and the bruises and dings I invariably get doing so.

Ok. I'm done whining. Here's a look at the two class 4 rapids.
This is the entry to the mile-long Mule Creek Canyon. Those rocks are ominously named The Jaws, and the upper part of the rapid is The White Snake.






This is where you don't want to swim. Bad as it looks, it's pretty easy rafting and the only people who've drowned here are idiots without lifejackets who, incidentally, are often drunk.
More of the narrows.

Here's a boil in the infamous, at least to Rogue rafters, Coffee Pot, a surging piece of water that can suck down a raft tube and gives driftboaters a thrill. And some dents. Years ago Paul flipped his kayak here and when he tried to pull off the spray skirt while upside down, the ball came off in his hand. He was underwater a long time prying off the skirt, and I was sitting in an eddy with my heart in my throat, wondering how I'd raise Quinn alone. (pre-Chris days)



This is the top of Blossom Bar, the second Class 4 of the trip and about one mile downstream from Mule Creek. When entering Blossom at lower flows (around 2,000 CFS), this is what you see. Those rocks where the water is piling up are called the Pickett Fence. They're not terribly difficult to avoid, especially at this water level, but this is the exact spot that most people drown on the Lower Rogue. Don't freak out. A tiny percentage has any problem whatsoever. But sometimes boats flip or get pinned on the Pickett Fence, and people can get trapped in the rocks. For safe passage, you head straight for the unseen-in-this-photo narrow passage on the right, although the route can change at higher water.
Looking back upstream in Blossom, there's the Pickett Fence with the pour-off on the left that you want to get a boat through. Sure looks easy, huh? According to my son the extreme and crazy kayaker, this is SO nothing. But to most rafters, driftboaters, and kayakers, Blossom Bar is a significant challenge. It scared me every time I rowed it—at least 100 times—but now that I've given up the river except for maybe once a year as a special favor to PK, I can enjoy it for the adrenalin boost.
And finally, here's a salmon gulping cool fresh water where Rum Creek flows into the Rogue. It's a hot August day, the river is low, and even though fish are jumping, there are a lot of belly-up salmon. They don't go to waste. We saw a bear taking a huge fish up the bank into the woods across from Horseshoe Bend, and a bald eagle carrying one high above the river. I can't argue with the wonder of such sights.