No Smoke, No Fire--Rogue River Raft Trip 2012

An early September raft trip on the Rogue River was an excellent way to say goodbye to summer and welcome fall.

 

My husband and skilled rower, Mike, navigated one of the five rafts we took through the Rogue River Wild and Scenic stretch last week. After our recent trip on the Salmon, we were happy that the Rogue River had no active forest fires. We really lucked out with the weather--hot, sunny days and cool evenings. We launched at Almeda Campground and were out of touch with civilization for the next five days.

Two of our favorite rafting cohorts, the Michaels brothers, know how to relax and have a great time on the river.

 

On the first day of the trip we had to get beyond Rainie Falls, a truly scary rapid. Some folks actually go over the falls, many getting tossed out of their rafts. We, on the other hand, lined up with other rafts to bump our way through the side chute, "fish ladder." This is a much safer way to go.

 

We spent most of the first day on the river in order to make it to Horseshoe Bend Campsite. This is really a beautiful spot, high above the river. There's a great rapid to swim, as well as wonderful tent sites and a perfect bocce ball court. (Bocce ball is one of out new river activities, and the competition was fierce with lots of "trash talk".) We stayed two nights, enjoying the heck out of our one lay-over day.

 

I spent some of the day on this 9 x 12 watercolor sketch.

 

And here is the inspiration for the sketch.

 

To give you a better idea of what these trips are like, I took a picture of our kitchen set-up--a four burner stove, four tables, a kitchen box full of dishes, pots, etc. We don't do without on these trips. Dinners usually include two or three side dishes along with a delicious entree. I would bet that we eat as well or better than people on a guided trip.

 

And then there is cocktail hour. Tough, huh?!

 

The Rogue has a problem with bears. To deter them from raiding camps for food, the Forest Service has set up electrified bear fences in many campsites for campers to place coolers and other food storage boxes in at night. However, the wire makes a great clothesline as well.

 

The river does have some of the most beautiful scenery with the evergreen covered mountains, blue skies,

 

and dramatic rocks.

 

Last year I was able to get some great bear-eating-salmon photos which inspired the painting "Mine!"

 

This year I'd have to piece it together. First a little dead salmon . . .

 

then some bear.

 

As the salmon return to the rivers to spawn, they die and float. That attracts other animals besides bears. We saw an unusual amount of turkey vultures this year, both flying and doing their scavenger thing along the shore.

 

A bit cuter were the turtles out sunning on the rocks.

 

Toward the end of our trip we saw quite a few of my favorites--herons. Unfortunately, I did not get good photos, but here is one I captured on the shore. (Perhaps a painting will come out of this.)

 

A Smokey Salmon River Raft Trip

Our 10 day trip started out smokey. We knew ahead of time that we were headed for forest fires on the Salmon River, but because it is a trip requiring permits, we had to go on the dates we'd requested in January.

 

On our way into our launch site, we passed a large fire fighter camp, with tents galore.

 

As we began our trip, the sun shone through the smoke filled sky as a red to orange orb. It felt as though we were on a foreign planet.

 

Early in the trip, I tried to capture the atmosphere in a small sketch.

 

The air was so full of smoke, we wore damp handkerchiefs to filter out some of the smoke going into our lungs. Here is my bandit oarsman . . .

 

and his masked passengers--me with our granddaughter, Angelica.

 

We floated through the active fire. Here are 2 of our 5 raft, one kayak, 16 people party passing by burning trees.

 

The smoke created beautiful colors in the water,

 

and mystical landscapes reminding me of Chinese paintings.

 

We saw many eagles on this trip, both bald and goldens. The smoke seemed to confuse some animals as we saw bats flying during the daytime and insects were more predominant than other trips. A small black deer fly was extremely aggravating on the first half of the trip. They were in abundance, and bit non-stop on the lower legs and feet whenever a person stopped moving. They also were unwelcome passengers on our rafts. 

 

All along the wild and scenic section of the Salmon, we saw evidence of mountain sheep (pellets), with occasional sightings.

 

Eventually, we moved past the fire and a storm front blew the smoke out of the canyon.

 

We were able to focus on the amazing Salmon River rock formations . . .

 

and exciting white water rapids.

 

Can you spot the kayak in there? Look for a blue front tip and a red helmet.

 

I found time to do another sketch of a creek running into the Salmon. This time the colors were bold, not subdued by smoke.

 

Our granddaughter learned to maneuver a raft, starting on the small raft our great-niece, Emily, and friend, Liesl, rowed down the river.

 

Angelica also liked raft hopping--here she is on the Big Boy raft with our great-nephew, Daniel, and friend, Kevin.

The "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" raft.

 

All good things must come to an end, and here we are approaching take-out. It was a fine trip--all rafts and the kayak came through the rapids "messy-side" up (upright). Stay tuned for the upcoming Rogue River post.