Leaving the River (rogue river part VII)

The fifth day on the river is our last and we have mixed emotions.  One emotion is:  I stink!  You spend time on a river and pretty soon you smell like one.  Actually, much worse than this one did. 

I showered once at Horseshoe Bend.  We had set up an area discrete from the main camp area; it was a gravel-covered bench about 50 feet above the river's surface, set back maybe 50 also from the bank.  A long rapid tumbled downstream and created a rushing zen backdrop.  It was totally private from our camp, out of earshot and obscured from view by a large rock outcrop.

Obviously, the usual way to shower is to take off all your clothes, rinse, soap up, rinse again and you're done.  There had been no rafts on the river for an hour or two, definitely none during the time it took to get the sun shower bag hung on the rock and prepare my supplies.  Off go the clothes and I begin to soap up.  I should have bet money:  Round the bend come three rafts and I am standing there not dressed.  Definitely naked.  In the middle of nowhere. I am now the most interesting scenery they've seen for a while.  Can't a bear turn up on the opposite bank and distract them? Shit! (River speak for:  Where did they come from?)  Well, what are my choices now?  Dance?  Wave? Scream? Not much I can do; I turn away and pretend I shower every day on large exposed river bends.  La dee dah.  Ho hum.  Right.  They have the good sense to keep to their rafts and float away.  Chalk another one up to my excellent luck. 

Two days after the showering-naked-on-a-river-bank incident, I am stinking ripe again.  I have no intention of going home except that I want to smell better than this.  A hot shower beckons me back to civilization; all else repels me.

On this our fifth and final day of meandering and doodling on pools, bobbing up and down on riffles, we have settled into new ways of moving.  We have aches, blisters, welts and bruises, but we are still singing.  Last night, we camped on a bend by a slow-moving pool.  Downstream we hear but don't see another camping group.  Upstream, we had floated past a group of men already camped.  At just past twilight, our group begins to howl at the moon.  There's no TV; what else do you think of doing when the moon comes up?  The two neighboring unseen groups hear our howls and echo them.  Howling goes on for a while and gradually fades out.  Everyone is satisfied.  All bears and wildlife, aside from we humans, are long gone, probably holding their ears and shaking their heads.  But, we're satisfied, feel a little wilder, attuned to a different sense of time.  We sleep like rocks.

Next morning, I see Tom up on a ledge above the kitchen area with his tent over his head, shaking out the dirt, singing, "It's not unusual to be in LOVE with anyone!"  His coffee has worked wonders.  He's channeling Tom Jones and seems full of himself.  An actor in LA, Tom has performed on stage as well and can mimic a poodle's bark and his Russian landlady's accent with stunning accuracy. I wonder if he'll be pounding his chest and swinging on vines next. 

Debi dances by, a grin bigger than the bright sun lights up the universe.  She's listening to ACDC on her iPod and packing her dry bag between sashays to and from the boats, hauling her gear and humming. 

Stewart, one of our oarsmen, hands out fake flower leis.  We are a happy mob of stinking river floaters and love the river like the mother that she is.  We load into the four rafts, one ducky and two kayaks and ease into the slow current, looking back at the river bank.  It looks empty, bereft in a way.  I think it's my sense of nostalgia already taking hold, changing reality into a sepia-toned reminiscence.  I feel like sobbing into a beer for a moment, yielding to the melodramatic possibility of perhaps never coming this way again.  That would be a tragedy.

We vow to return, to return to all rivers, any river that will take us back.

The river has a last very technical rapid to throw at us - the most challenging for our oarsmen.  They scout it and cinch down our gear more carefully, then check their life insurance policies.  Well, I remember I have one anyway. When they are satisfied about the route between some gigantic snaggling horrors of boulders, we shout and commit ourselves, plunging headlong on the sloshing roller coaster.  The giant green tongue licks us forward a bit to the right, Chris hauls hard on the oars to get us immediately left, we wheel right again and the raft bucks.  The crests of waves slap the boat and dash water in our faces. I hang on to whatever I can grab, hold my breath and scream at the same time, amazed that it's possible.  I think about my whistle, forget all over again what the signals are.  I imagine myself underwater, trying to blow one long or three short, and I see the dinosaur-sized rocks standing guard left and right, crazy big water piling up against them.  The swishing roar is intoxicating.  In a minute that stretches out all the way to this very moment, the river's wild heartbeat thunders in my ears and she sings her wild song, the same one we'd howled the night before.

A few more riffles separated by long drifts through deep green pools define the rest of the day.  Finally, we've reached the take-out and work commences again.  All the "shit," as we've all come to call it, is hauled out and loaded up for the long drive back to Merlin, upriver.  The day is hot and the river seems more distant even though she's right at our feet.  I feel her rhythm and pace, know her destination, see her flowing away from us, on and on, a wild thing. 

Smiles, promises, good-byes and we're gone, cast to the four winds, driving to our separate jobs and ordinary life again. I feel torn away and adrift in a different way, far less free, stinking and tired.  Happy, grateful. 

The Rogue water is flowing still, and moves me yet.  Our stretch of five days, more or less, is an interchange of time for energy; it charges up my soul as it has not been charged for a long while.  Pray for rain and for the river.  She needs our understanding and care.  In turn, she gives back a hundredfold to every one of us who knows her and, in ways we do not or choose not to acknowledge, she caresses us all. 

River bank crew (Rogue River part VI)

We sling our heavy dry bags to and fro from boat to bank and we all take a hand in camp chores including setting up the "kitchen" and tents. Kevin sets up The Groover, a necessary but unglamorous job. The Groover, aka crapper, stinkpot, pooper, potty, etc., is required by the permit to be brought along; all solid human waste must be removed from the river environs. We take only pictures and leave only footprints. Poop not in the wilderness, maties!

The kitchen consists of a long narrow table on which sits a camp stove powered by a propane tank; a lower and equally long table is covered first with the meal preparations and then the food and utensils as we eat. Chris rigs a clever washing system that's comprised of two buckets, a bulb pump and a faucet made of copper tubing. One hose pulls water from the clean bucket through the faucet and then into the gray-water bucket. You step onto the bulb to pump water out of the faucet and wash your hands - just like downtown. A long mesh bag is slung under the cook table which holds the drying pots and pans, plates and utensils after they're washed. Each raft holds a large cooler and a very large aluminum chest containing packaged foodstuffs. They're packed to bursting.

Life on the river is a peculiar mix of luxury and austerity: We bring as little as possible in clothing - garments that dry very quickly, even shielding us from ultraviolet sun - but as much as possible of all manner of food and drink.

Spotting a choice camp each midafternoon, we haul ashore, scout the camp area, claim tent sites and then set about food preparations. To a person, we attack the food with gusto, having floated quietly on the river for a few hours. Pupus (extravagant predinner snacks) are prepared and consumed very quickly. Then drinking commences and explorations are undertaken.

River and We 16 With Coffee (Rogue River Part IV)

What is crucial to life as you float down a river? My mind eddied off to the left and contemplated it all, considered the meanderings and left them, floated back and left them again. The arc of the sun from the eastern arising to the western setting encompassed the entirety of the universe as we then knew it. All of what is important in life fit within that arc and exactly that - nothing more mattered.

We had left our watches back at the put-in camp out of necessity. Few of us owned a waterproof timepiece that would stand up to a minute or two of light splashing, never mind a true soaking, but that was just as well for it nudged us toward the goal we had hoped for: Getting our senses back. We needed to reacquaint ourselves with the arc of a summer day.

I awakened each day at predawn never sure quite what had opened my eyes. Most likely it was birds. Osprey chirping, eagles' dry shreep-shreep-shreep and the unholy prehistoric graaaaaak of a blue heron. I went for slow walks along the river or up around camp to see what might reveal itself, and I simply sat by the graceful curling rapids and listened to the river in all its range of sounds. Underneath all was a steady heartbeat indistinguishable from my own.

We were pleased to no end to discover that one of the oarsmen, Tom, was a devout and highly obsessed coffee brewer, a barista in disguise. He arose almost as early as I every morning and set about preparing his special brew with what turned out to be characteristic precision and care. Attention to detail matters, Tom and I agreed. He had purchased Peets coffee in advance in a very delicately blended mix, estimating almost exactly how much each of us would care to drink each morning. Starting with the large red speckled tin coffee pot that was set to boiling, he brought out filters, cream, organic sugar and a tea assortment for those unable or unwilling to savor a cuppa joe. Carefully pouring the hot water through the exactly measured grounds in the filter suspended over the coffee urn, Tom could not and would not be rushed or distracted from his crucial chore. This was not coffee to be gulped and ignored just to get a caffeine hit. Banish the thought! This was a special nectar whose full rounded rich flavor exemplified the joys of eating outdoors in a wonderful place.

We learned to be patient, and patience was rewarded. After we had been on the river only one day, for the most part we looked like a pretty motley crew and we were not ambitious nor full of urgency in the slightest. Morningtime found us gradually assembling near the brewing coffee with a distant, unfocused and vaguely unconcerned demeanor. We shuffled and murmured and smiled and remembered we had no idea what time it was and did not even care. We were entropied motes floating, loosely assembled in time and space with one bond between us: A warm, aromatic cup of perfect coffee. We took sips between long gentle inhalations of morning air and then gradually formed a novel idea that breakfast might be nice to have.

So, two of the group were handed likely cooking implements and foodstuffs for the meal. Breakfast was made. We sat again by the river in our camp chairs and stared again at the flowing water, taking long drafts of coffee, savoring what was put on our plates. It seemed that breakfast was reinvented, rediscovered and marveled at as if we were emerging from a coma in a new century.

The several cups of caffeine began to take effect in many ways: Suddenly awakened kidneys went into full gear, heart rates rose noticeably and minds were now alert. Murmuring changed to shouts and songs. It was time to go downriver again. Pack and prepare, assemble and load. Of one mind, we were 16 river floaters with all gear dry bagged, bodies sunblocked and wrapped up again in our stiff, awkward vests and oarsmen taking up position on their respective cooler boxes amidships. We were rogues on the Rogue and having none of this softened pace. Take us down 'er, men! We are ready for what she may have for us!

And ever the river flowed. It always seemed to be something more than a river and yet was only a river. It was simply water flowing down grade to the ocean, of course. But it was free and set us free again, held a mystery deep within itself - green, liquid, reforming constantly and endlessly. Beside it and now riding it again, we were of a mind: the day was in full blaze and the rapids awaited once more. (To be continued)

Remembering the Rogue, Part I

I learned a lot of things on the Oregon river called the Rogue. Most of all, I learned that humans can hardly go anywhere without a literal ton of things. River guides call it shit, so I will too. "We got to load all this shit on the raft or we aren't going anywhere." "Man that's a lot of shit!" "Where do they get all this shit anyway?" Like that.

I took all my REI prizes (see previous post) and headed north, gathering with my tribe on the banks of the Rogue. It was hot in a way that volcanologists who scoop red-hot lava understand, and metal was dripping off my car by the time I got to the gathering spot. My body, which is usually shivering and clammy in our local fog at this time of year, puffed up immediately to twice its normal size and I looked like Mrs. Tomato Head. But, I was thrilled to be joining the ranks of adventurers who seize the day and sally forth into the wild blue yonder. I was overdue for sallying.

The river was beautiful and seductive from the moment I saw it shimmering in the blasting heat. It made cool delightful noises and I wanted to jump into its arms immediately. Instead, I gaped at the massive tonnage assembled next to our four rafts. "Man that's a lot of shit!" Chris the Expedition Leader strode around making sense of it and cursing it in turn. He's been down a million rivers and had a very clear idea of what was supposed to happen in the next few hours. I had only the one idea: Get it all onto four rafts and go float on the river. That idea simplified quite a bit to the point where my idea was: Stay out of the way.

Chris gathered us around and gave us a safety talk. "One whistle means something. Three whistles mean something else!" At least that's what I remembered three days later. "Don't point at obstacles in the river, point to where there's a clear spot. If you see a rock in the way, don't point to it, point somewhere else!" Hmmm...this was going to be a lot tougher than I'd imagined. Mostly, because when you're a passenger in a car and the driver is heading straight for a truck, you tend to want to scream and point to the grill as it bears down on you, not point at a tree nearby or a distant cloud.

Next thing I know, we are shoving off and piling into the rafts. I'm wearing a straight jacket. Well, they are quaintly called life vests, but you are forced by the confining thickness of the jacket to walk like Frankenstein and cannot bend at the waist at all. You feel impervious to almost everything, bumping off of other people and trees like a large ball. You jump into the river and get pulled out again by the shoulders of the jacket as if you were a large flounder flopping helplessly, kicking your legs ineffectually and hoping the person hauling you in doesn't strangle you with the jacket because you forgot to retighten the upper buckles of the jacket the last time you decided to breathe. The technique is supposed to be simple: You jump in, swim, pee in the river while pretending to watch an eagle fly overhead, swim over to the raft and ask to be helped back in. On three, your helper grabs the shoulder pad area of the vest, leans back to counter your weight and hauls you up and over the side. You slither up into the raft and resume your post in the bow feeling refreshed and content.

I was confident and happy to be riding in Chris's raft on the first day. Until he abandoned ship. Between rapids on the Rogue are long stretches of deep slow-moving water that nonetheless need some guiding hands on the oars to negotiate effectively. Just as I was beginning to develop a deep calm, Chris let the oars go slack and simply dove off the raft into the water. Just like that. Hey, come back here! Certain that we would soon be swept off an enormous waterfall or bashed up against an unseen rock, I began to calculate the time it would take me to row to shore, secure the raft and call for a new guide.

Cell phones - if you are silly enough to think yours will survive all the water and dirt - don't work in the river canyon. I realized I was exactly and simply another piece of luggage on the raft. I don't know how to row, can't get myself through a rapid, didn't really have a clear idea of where I was exactly and was wrapped up in a rented life vest feeling like - and looking a very close approximation to - a beach ball.

Just before I got to the squeak stage of anxiety (which preceeds the whimper stage), Chris hoisted himself back into the raft and took up the oars. "Man, that's the best thing on the river. Just jump in and cool off. That pizza oven wind is blowing. Can you feel it?" He grinned and laughed, rowing heartily toward the distant roar of rapids. (To be continued)