We opted for the 4 hour, 36 mile round trip which included brunch at the OK Corral (the Hellgate company's private open-air restaurant for their guests). It was a great brunch, served family style with endless sausage gravy, biscuits, fresh fruit, bacon, sausages, scrambled eggs, hash browns, coffee, juices, and champagne. Yes, the champagne bottles were endless, too.
You can visit the company's site at http://hellgate.com/ It's some operation - 8 boats that go out 3 times per day for the 4 month season. They operate in a partnership with The Bureau of Land Management and the US Department of Interior, working to preserve and protect the ecology and scenic beauty of this natural resource.
We did the 360's, spewing water through the entire boat, raced down the shallow, narrow, rock strewn river, and saw deer, osprey, eagles, and other water birds. Realizing what could result from hitting a rock with an aluminum boat full of people at 30 to 40 mph was rather sobering.
The Hellgate canyon on the Rogue River has been used in many movies over the years. Remember when Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid jumped off the cliff into the river? yulp. So did John Wayne (or his stunt double....), Matt Dillon on a couple of Gun Smoke episodes, and others. Not me...
The canyon is called Hellgate because the old timers, trying to traverse the river, found the rough white water (after our turn-around point) so intense that they could only imagine that it was as bad as the Gate to Hell. Class 5 and 6 rapids down there. Historically, the river was used as a waterway from inland Oregon through the Cascade mountains to the coast at Gold Beach, OR.
Fingers are crossed and hopes are high for a final fix on the brakes tomorrow. We will leave and head to the Rocky Mtn. National Park. With our week's delay, that means three 500 mile days to meet Luke's daughter for a week of camping together. Hope it is cooler there..... Oh, and clearer! Smoke from the area fires is beginning to get worse. The sky has been a yellow-ish over-cast type hue all day. Someone said they went to Crater Lake yesterday and literally couldn't see the lake from the vantage point where we took pictures! SOOOO glad we went on Friday!
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