61 - 9/27 - Rogue (Day 3)

Mule Creek Canyon

We would need our great breakfast of biscuits & gravy and sausage because this would be an 18 mile day. We headed out early and ran a few fun rapids before hitting the first long flat section. Luckily, we had a downstream wind during this stretch, which helped a lot. After a few more rapids, we stopped for a quick lunch at the Rogue River Ranch, and then headed for Mule Creek Canyon.

The canyon was tight and technical, but fun as always. At the end of the Canyon lies Blossom Bar. Most of the people in the group went up on the rocks to scout and watch the rest of us run the rapid. I led, and my run was far from textbook. I was trying to back around the first corner, and I ended up hitting a rock and spinning around too soon. I went ahead and dropped into the main chute and then had to make the tough choice of which way to go. I chose left, and ended up having to bounce off a large rock. After that, the rapid was wide open and easy. I pulled over at the bottom and took pictures of everyone else coming through.

After Devil's Staircase, I got out front and rowed. One of the people in the group had an electric motor for this section, so I didn't expect to stay in the lead. We figured that our chosen camp would probably be taken, so the plan was to stop at the camp above, send two people down to the camp we wanted, and then if it was available, one person would come back if it was available.

I pushed down the river, passing a couple of commercial rafts as I went. At one point, I passed a couple in a raft. They pointed out a bear on the shore, and then we could all see two bears. We talked about the camping options, and I realized that I needed to make a run for our camp. Since there was nobody with me, I bypassed the upstream camp and went on to the chosen camp. I figured that the worst that would happen is that I would have to pull my boat up a small rapid and then row a little to get to the upper camp. That turned out to not be necessary. We got the camp we wanted.

As I got to camp and started setting things up, I noticed that I had injured my right foot. I'm not sure where this happened. It could have been on the raft when I was pushing off a rock, or it could have been when I was taking pictures. In any case, it turned out to not be broken, but a week later I still had a little soreness.

Dinner was chili and cornbread, followed by too many desserts and lots of fun hanging out.