Rogue River 7/25 - 7/29/11 Day 2

Today was a great, wonderful, fantastic day! We ran lots of juicy rapids, several class IIs, some class IIIs and one class IV. The class IV rapid was Tyee, it was just more than one mile downstream of our campsite, the first rapid of the day and I didn't swim! A few of the other rapids that we ran today: Wildcat (class III), Slim Pickins (class III), Black Bar (class III), Black Bar (class III), and oh yes, Black Bar (class III). With the water level being higher than is usual in the summer it was hard for those in our group who have been down the Rogue before to recognize the class II rapids between Slim Pickins and Black Bar. There are three listed in the guide book, Washboard, Plowshare, and Windy Creek Chute, that are all in one mile of river. The first time we "ran" Black Bar, Michael floated next to me and said "okay, this is Black Bar ahead," and gave me an outline of the rapid which has two sections: Upper Black Bar Falls and Lower Black Bar Falls, both are listed as class IIIs. This of course gets my adrenalin pumping, and my heart starts to race. We make it through and I breath a big sigh of relief, the hardest rapid of the day is run! A few minutes later, as we come to another rapid, Beth paddles back to tell me, "They think this is Black Bar!" So the heart starts racing, I'm trying to remember the outline of the run Michael gave me previously and I maneuver my way through. In the pool at the bottom I hear Mark say to Beth, "No, that wasn't Black Bar, too easy."

Easy? I think to myself, yikes! It wasn't too bad, but easy?

We go a little further and we can see another rapid up ahead. "Okay, this is Black Bar." Mark says. Once again, my heart speeds up, breathing increases, I'm pretty nervous now. However, the third time really is the charm because sure enough, this was Black Bar! This time, Michael, Pat, and I hopped out of our boats on river right to watch Mark and Beth run through. We could see them enter on river right, moving to the right and just then they disappeared behind a bunch of big boulders! I scramble around to try and see around the boulders and when I do catch sight of them they are now moving left at the bottom of the rapid! So somewhere in there is a move back to the left. Now, I'm pretty nervous. The first two Black Bars weren't exactly easy, and this Black Bar promises to be a bit more difficult. I followed Michael with Pat coming behind me, Larry and Edith are quite a ways back; their boat floats much more slowly than the rest of us. I drop down the right side looking for the feature that I want to turn left to avoid. I use a diagonal wave to keep my boat from going too far right as the river turns left, change my boat angle to point to the left and bounce through the waves until I see a hole at the bottom that I am not going to be able to avoid. I take a couple of big forward strokes and my momentum punches through the hole and out into the pool. It was awesome!

Camping at Upper Horseshoe Bend camp site. Larry and Edith are cooking dinner tonight with a little help from Michael. Tomorrow is going to be a layover day, no paddling.