Monterey 2003, Part 2 - River Running

"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you may be swept off to."
Bilbo Baggins

Monterey 2003, Part 2
River Running

posted 08/02/03
We started this trip with a whimsical Lewis and Clarke analogy so it seems appropriate to at least follow their activities if not their footsteps. Most people have an image of the intrepid explorers trudging across the Rockies on foot but the first 1/3 of their trip was in a boat up the Missouri river. We decided to sample river running and compare notes with the Corps of Discovery.

Rogue River kayaks

1200 HP at speed in shallow water!

This is Hellgate Narrows and there is room for ONE jet boat at a time.

A friendly goodbye wave as we leave the Rogue and head for California

To do this we head down I-5 from Portland to Grants Pass to stay with my wife's sister and brother-in-law. In every family, there are "relatives", "alternatives", and in this case "superlatives" as they put us up for two nights and took us jet boating on the Rogue River. The Corps of Discovery complained about the drudgery of the river section of their trip. The tedious labor of hauling their boats upstream against the current. I really don't know what they had to complain about!

This river exploration isn't so bad. You get on your boat in the morning. The skipper fires up the three 400HP engines and you cruise downstream at 50mph to a fully catered champagne brunch! Piece of cake really.

The jet boats are fairly quiet and the wildlife along the river isn't bothered by them. Herons hunt and ospreys nest and eagles soar. The critters seem to take the boat's temporary intrusion in stride and just keep about their business. The real conflict is with other human users.

The Rogue is not a big river and our group of four 36 foot, 75 passenger high speed boats shares it with innertubes, drift boats, and fisherman. This is an uneasy mix at times. The jets only draw 6" at speed and to a sailor used to thinking of anything less than six feet as dangerous and to be avoided, this was unnerving! Just when I thought that we were in water as thin as could be, we went through even shallower sections! If the boat stops though, it takes two feet of water to get started as it squats down before getting up on the step.

Coming around a turn in shallow water and suddenly encountering a family in a drifting raft can cause problems for both vessels. To avoid that, the skippers are in contact with each other and they radio information back and forth in clipped code like an air traffic controler. Very professional and we thread our way down to Hellgate Narrows without any close calls.

This is an important tourist draw here. American eco-tourism. High speed, on time, catered,..and fun! I take guilty pleasure in this use of hydrocarbons. On the trip back up river the guides spin the boats and blast through each others wake. This soaks all in the boat and everyone is laughing and having a good time.

Inspite of all of this mayhem on its surface, the Rogue seems very healthy. The salmon runs last year were numerous and the fish were large. A little displaced water seems a fair trade off here for public exposure to the river and the awareness and political protection that results from it.

That said, big, name rivers are not my favorites. Hell Gate is narrow and very deep. I've always hated that. I like my rivers like I like my people: broad and shallow! Forget the mysteries of the deep and unseen, hidden currents in relationships. Give me an open, transparent stream or person. I prefer easy laughter and the chuckle of water over mossy stones. The deep currents of the big streams and the brooding intellectual with "issues" don't interest me.

My favorite streams don't show on maps. They don't have movements organized to "save" them. They aren't home to endangered runs of salmon. They are dappled with shadow and home to tasty native cutthroat trout. Legions of children build small dams and canals without permits. These are erased with every winter's flood and rebuilt every summer by more children. And life goes on.

I admire these small streams that carry on their geological duties of erosion, transportation, and deposition. Most are unsung and un-named except by children and local farmers. In urban areas, some are paved over but don't think that's forever! Come a heavy rain and a sudden thaw and they'll be back. Bubbling out of manholes, overflowing culverts. Undermining roads, they will someday reclaim their watersheds. Our next destination was to visit these kinds of streams in the area around Orleans California.

The Old Squid

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"Road Trips" by The Old Squid

Monterey 2003, Part 2 River Running

Monterey 2003, Part 2
River Running