Rogue River TR (from last year)

[Flaskman]

We just got back from our 4 day float down the Rogue River. We were sort of prepared for rain the whole time, but thankfully for the first half of the trip the weather was partly sunny to mostly cloudy. It was always threatening to rain on us, but the sun came out enough to make it really nice. The last day of the trip it rained...and rained...and rained and rained some more. It was really hard to stay postive and keep dry when we had to set up camp, sleep all night and break down camp in the freaking rain...but we managed nicely. Thank goodness for good tents and pop-up shelters.

Here are our rafts at the put in...this is my boat. It's an Aire 14 footer with Cataraft Oars and an old oar frame made from muffler pipe...it was a tanker, but it worked great! Complements of Eagle Rafting in Kernville...


The other folks had different strategies to fight off the rain...


The pile on the back of this boat was friggen hilarious...and heavy...


ahhhhhhhhh...it's good to be back on the river...


This is the view from our first camp...


The second day we floated down to Marial Lodge and got a room, good thing...it rained all night. Marial Lodge was first built in the early 1940's...it's a really nice old lodge in the middle of nowhere.


They feed you all you can eat at dinner and breakfast on tables with lazy-susan set ups in the middle of the table...it was awesome...


After breakfast we hit the river again, the first feature we get to is the Mule Creek Canyon and the Coffee Pot. I don't have any whitewater shots cuz we have to put the camera away to run them. The Coffee Pot is not a really hard rapid or anything, but the canyon narrows down to only about 15' and I was in a 14' boat, the depth goes from 6-8' to more than 90' and the currents are bizzare and appears to percolate...funny water is an understatement...it's a strange and erie place. This is just before it gets narrow...


This is just after the narrows and into Mule Creek Canyon...it was good to be past the coffee pot...


Ok...back to fishin'...


The next rapid is Blossom Bar, it was the only class IV on the trip, there were lots of fun class III stuff before this, but this is the only one that we really had to pay attention to. The only recommended line is right in the middle of this shot...otherwise you will probably wrap your boat around a rock and that would really ruin an otherwise great trip.


Safely through that rapid...it's all down hill from here!!


The personality of the river changes below this point. It becomes more of a float than a whitewater trip so the partying can increase a bit! This is evidence of some really high water...


They have used the river for over a hundred years to deliver mail to some of the lodges up stream. They blasted a path through every rapid (up to Blossom Bar) so the boats could get upstream and deliver mail and supplies. Blossom Bar is the end of the road for Jet boats going upstream. Here is Paradise Lodge...


Here is the only jet or prop boat we saw all the way down...


We packed 25 lbs of dry ice for the week to keep our food and beer *really* cold...not to mention the Patron! A typical lunch of Triscuits and Brie, celery and tomatos, and Patron and Tecate!


Fishing with a smile...


Some of the camps have electric bear fences that work really well...we had bears around us, but they left our food alone when it was in the fence.

This guy looked as though he has camped there before...


This was our camp on Wednesday...it rained on us the whole time we were here...


This guy was always around Wednesday night...


They even have out houses at the big camps...


Breaking down camp Thursday morning was miserable as it rained hard all morning. We were considering camping again Thursday night, but decided against it. Once we took off...it was still raining...


Choosing flies...


More rain...and now cold...


More rain...but a beautiful day in the northwest...


Some people deal with the rain differently!


More rain...sheesh...this is getting ridiculous...


Near the end of the day Thursday the sun came out a little bit..WOOOHOO!! Back to civilization...


Sunshine...finally! Break out the Crown! Notice how warmly she's dressed...Capilene base layer, fleece, wool sweater, the puffy, turtle fur neck gator, triple-layer Gore-Tex...PFD...sheesh...did I mention it was cold?


Finally...the take-out...


After a Triscuits and Brie and Crown Royal lunch, I'm trying to convince them I'm doing work by laying on the raft getting the air out. I'm glad I wasn't driving home!


Good times!


On the way back to the put-in we encountered snow...I told you it was friggen cold!

[donutlynx]

Nice! My partner-in-crime and I hiked upstream from Foster Bar to Grave Creek two weeks ago, while my housemate and his gf paddled down (we ran their shuttle, basically). One of the most scenic hikes I've been on. The weather, oddly enough, was great up until our last day. It rained from the time we got up until it turned to snow. We decided to skip the last night, and hiked the 14 miles that day to the car. Saw a few bears, a bunch of cougar poop, and a bald eagle. Pretty badass, really. Should be a fun float trip...maybe this fall.

[Flaskman]

You hiked upstream, eh...nice...I guess that's one way to run shuttle. That would be a nice hike for sure...how long did that take you?

[Dantheman]

Cool. I went on one of the jet boat tours there with my parents when I was in high school. It was fun, but that looks funner.

[donutlynx]

You hiked upstream, eh...nice...I guess that's one way to run shuttle. That would be a nice hike for sure...how long did that take you?

We started on Sunday evening, around 6 pm. We finished up on Wednesday afternoon, around 4 pm. We spent 3 nights out. I really enjoyed hiking upstream instead of down...seeing the river get steeper (slightly) and checking out all those waterfalls coming in. What was that, Stairstep Falls or something - right below the Ranch on river left. Nice 20-footer. I recommend the hike, although the float looks much more relaxed.

[HotCarl]

Shiit yeah,i been wanting to do the Rogue for a while now. It looks like a sweet NW'ern river. I gotta do it now. So is this the permitted section that i've been shot down on the last few years?? The one with the class V falls w/ the optional portage? Goood lookin river!

Edit: Fuckin Puma's rock

[Camilo]

The Wild section of the Rogue is permit by lottery post-Memorial Day w/e. I've done it three times the week or 2 before Memorial Day. It's an awesome float with no shortage of camp sites. It's a 6-8 hour shuttle, so well worth the $100 most people charge to do it for you.

[donutlynx]

Yep. This is the section with the "fifth-class falls". It does require a permit...during permit season. The 2-way shuttle does take a long-ass time...unless you get some backpackers to drive your car to the bottom...then it is only one-way

[Flaskman]

We have always gone in September, but last year we went in October hoping the fishing would be better, it wasn't. In September, there have always been openings from cancelations that show up on the Website, there are strict rules about canceling, so just keep checking that page and you will notice that it changes as the days you want to go get closer. As you can see now, you're pretty much screwed if you need to secure permits in advance, unless you want to go in October. We keep watching that page and openings show up as people cancel. If not, we have even gone up there and just showed up at the Ranger Station and have never had a problem with getting permits that day, but it is a risk. I think that in July/August, fewer people cancel so the risk of not getting a permit on a whim goes up. It was beautiful in October, but it did rain like hell the last day and even though we were prepared for it, it did suck to break down camp in the rain.

Rainy Falls are the falls you guys are talking about, it's runable, but I've always gone around it with a boat full of camping gear. It's the first real rapid you come to so it would suck to flip there and risk losing some of your gear the first day. There are two routes around it, both are pretty fun in themselves. Here's a shot of the falls, the ways around it are just left and out of the frame or all the way along the far bank.



What is really cool here is to sit and watch the Salmon try to jump up the falls...just like in AK baby...pretty damn cool. As you can see, even though it's a pretty smokin' hole, it's totally runable, the badasses in our group the year before ran it, but we just go around..."meow". Two cases of PBR/per person are required for this run(oops, the gf likes Tecate)...we cut the beer short but added Crown and Patron...worked out pretty good.

My girlfriend is a fly fishing purist, it's probably not the best way to go if you are really into catching fish, but it was fun. One day we were in a great spot and were catching some fish...as we watched her fly drift one cast a salmon surfaced about 2' from her fly and took something else...that fish was huge. It's head was the size of large dinner plate...musta been a 3-4-5(?) foot long fish...it was just a reminder of what sort of fish really are in that river. The dory boats with the fishing guides were all using Yarn Balls for bait, that's how they were catching the big Steelheads. Next year, she can fly fish, I'm gonna use yarn balls.

It's an amazing place.

[Flaskman]

If anyone is watching the Website for the float space openings, a bunch of openings just showed up today for May and June and Sept.

Just a FYI...

[HotCarl]

I wish i could. So many rivers i wanna do. Thats a long haul though. And i'm doin plenty of good rivers this season. Yampa on Tuesday! Dolores in a couple weeks. San Juan in June. Should be a pretty sweet season.