Rogue River 7/25 - 7/29/11 Day 4

Rogue River Day 4

Another great day on the river! We had to make some miles today and we did, we went about 17 miles and we were on the water from 10:30 am to about 3:30 or 4:00 pm. This is more than twice as much distance as we did on either of the two previous water days. I am tired out! This section of river also takes us through the two of the hardest rapids on the river (besides Rainy Falls), Coffee Pot in the Mule Creek Canyon and Blossom Bar. The Mule Creek Canyon is beautiful, at least the small section that I remembered to look up at! I also saw a bit at the end of the canyon after the water calmed down a bit. During the rest of the canyon my concentration was totally focused on the water and the boats in front of me. It was intense!

At the head of Mule Creek Canyon the river is forced to narrow down to fit between the walls of the canyon that are 16 to 20 feet wide. The canyon also twists and turns with sharp 90 degree corners and the water is moving very, very, very, very, fast. The narrowness, increased speed and depth, cause some weird, messed up hydraulics. The water in some places looks like it is boiling, with sinking currents, water bubbling up, and whirlpools. The worst spot for this in the canyon is called Coffee Pot because it percolates. Before you even get to Coffee Pot though you have to make it around the corners. The water rushes forward, hits the canyon wall, slides around the corner while at the same time bouncing up back upstream and piling up the wall creating pillows of water (good things), and diagonal waves (make me nervous). As you are maneuvering through these you have to change angle and power with the current to make it around the corner and not get pushed into the next wall. I did great through these. A corner or two before Coffee Pot our lead kayaker, Mark, flipped over on a boil or something then he rolled right back up and kept going. Then Beth, in the kayak right in front of me, got spun around in a whirlpool and she is now facing upstream stopped almost dead in the water and I am paddling right towards her! The last thing that Michael and Pat both told me before we entered the canyon was to "Keep paddling forward. Don't let the boils and whirlpools slow you down, you HAVE to keep up your momentum!" So I kept paddling and went past Beth but I think the back of my boat bumped Beth and caused her to flip over. By this time we were in the meat of Coffee Pot! I pulled my boat the rest of the way through the rapid and headed for an eddy along the canyon wall so that I could bail the water out of my boat. As I passed Mark, who was also in an eddy, I yelled to him, "Is Beth through?" to which he replied "almost!" When I turned around in the eddy and looked back upstream Beth was in the water and Michael was towing her toward a small rocky outcropping. I felt bad about Beth swimming because I think the back of my boat bumped her as I went by. Beth thought she was already upside down when our boats bumped and not to worry about it. The outcropping of rock was just big enough for Beth to stand up with her boat also standing on end so the water would drain out. It was quite a balancing act! The rest of the canyon was calm enough to look around and enjoy. Long green trees standing atop rock walls that are 10 to 15 feet tall, the sun is shining down making the clear, green water shimmer. Amazing.

A few bends further down the river past the canyon and you reach Blossom Bar which is probably one of the more technical rapids on the river. There are a couple of moves that you pretty much have to make or you end up in the Picket Fence! The Picket Fence is a series of rocks that stretch across the left side of the river from the shore to just about middle. They isn't enough room to go between them. This rapid is the only one that has a numbered diagram in the guide book showing the "safe" run through the rapid. The river is running about 2,000 cfs more than what is shown in the diagram and what I am looking at doesn't look anything like the guide book. Also, the picture in the guide book was taken downstream looking back up and I am upstream looking down thinking "Crap! I have to go through all of that?!" We decided to boat scout the rapid from an eddy at the top and then watch Mark and Beth enter. Michael and I decided to run the main route, the one shown in the guide book, and I am going to follow him with Pat bringing up the rear. So the main strategy is to start on the left side of the river moving back towards the right, catch the eddy upstream of the giant car sized boulder, peel out going around the boulder (still moving to the right), then turn back to the left drop down a two foot drop by following the smooth green tongue of water, turn back to the right and catch a shore eddy, peel out and follow the waves back to the left. The first eddy had too much water going through it to actually stop so I paddled really hard to stay close to the boulder so as to not miss the green tongue that takes you down the drop! I made the green tongue, this was the best part! Nice smooth water dropping down two feet nice and easy. I must have enjoyed it a little too much because I didn't change my boat angle in time to catch the shore eddy on the right but I did sort of catch a small rock eddy on the left but it wasn't holding my boat very well so I peeled out into the waves and went to find an eddy to bail out all the water. I missed Pat's run completely when I missed the right side shore eddy. He started down just after I did but he took a totally different route. He started out on river right and worked his way through a bunch of boulders all the way to the bottom. Apparently, at this high water level that is a viable option.

The last rapid of the day is Devil's Staircase. The water drops over a series of ledges as it rounds a corner. Everyone ran it, no problem. At the bottom of the staircase we saw our first jet boat. Blossom Bar marks the end of the Wild and Scenic designated section of the Rogue and we are now in a recreational section of the river. The jet boats come upstream from the coast to the bottom of Blossom Bar, turn around and head back downstream. These are not your personal river jet boat. These jet boats are enormous, they hold 60 to 70 people! We saw two within minutes of each other. The second one had to wait at the bottom of Devil's Staircase while the first came back down from Blossom Bar. It was a very loud realization that we really weren't in the protected section of the river anymore.

While the jet boats were continuing downstream, for us the day was over and we were looking for a campsite. We were checking one out at the bottom of Devil's Staircase as the jet boats went by but it had a pretty steep climb from the river to the campsite and we didn't feel like hauling all our gear up so we kept going. The next site was already taken, but a guy on the shore was madly waving Pat in. He was very excited to see canoes on the river! His name was Tim and he was from Tasmania. Yes, the country. We spent a few minutes chatting with him and he paddles a whitewater canoe back home. It was very cool to find another canoe enthusiast, even if he was in a raft on the Rogue.

We hit it lucky and the next camp was empty. Lower Half Moon Bar.