FLOATING THE ROGUE RIVER

Allen Wilson was a neighbor and friend when we lived on Hunter Creek outside of Gold Beach in the 1980's.   He had been a river guide on the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon and few other rivers, including the Rogue River.   To float the Wild and Scenic section of the Rogue River requires a permit between May and October, and sometimes you need to apply a year in advance for the time period you want.   The permit covers a certain number of people in the group and I don't remember the limit.    Allen had a permit for a summer float trip and asked me if I would be interested in going since he had a vacancy in their permit.   The reason for the permit was to insure each party of a place to camp, since there is only so many sand bars available in the wild and scenic portion to spend the night, plus try to make it a wilderness experience without bumper to bumper traffic going down the river.   The permit required all trash and human waste to be removed.  Allen had a bucket that we used to deposit our daily waste into after placing it in plastic bags.   To go up behind a rock to do our business we could see toilet paper and more behind every big rock.   During the high water in the winter all this got flushed down river.  No wonder it was common to get giardia from the Gold Beach water source.   

To start the trip we had to drive over Bear Camp Road toward Grants Pass and check in at the BLM Visitor Center at Rand to be issued a permit to be displayed on the raft.   It was a 3 or 4 day trip down to Foster Bar where we ended our trip.   Allen knew the rough rapids and where we had to pull the raft from the river and portage around, such as Black Bar falls.   On our second or third day we reached the Rogue River Ranch, a national historic site at Marial administered by BLM.   We spent a few hours looking at the ranch and the old house, used as a museum as  I recall.   There is a BLM road coming into the ranch from the north.  Beyond Marial we entered the Siskiyou National Forest where the old Mule Creek Guard Station was utilized by the trail crew that maintained the Rogue River trail.  The last dangerous rapid is at Blossom Bar.   Allen was experienced at getting a raft over this rapid, but many others have tried this, some have failed and some drowned.   This is the upper limit where jet boats coming up river from Gold Beach can go.   Many of these jet boats bring people up to the lodge at Paradise Bar, just below Blossom Bar.   In many ways this is where the wilderness experience ends.