Time and the River Passing

Rain finally arrived on our last day on Oregon’s Rogue River. Its telltale sound began to pepper the fly of my tent around dawn, inspiring me to burrow deeper within my sleeping bag. But when I heard the strains of a violin, I peeked outside and saw a tarp over the cooking area suspended by ropes and oars. Grudgingly, I pulled on my rain suit and ventured out.

I’d never have guessed that a rain-soaked gathering could seem so sunny. Guides and guests were talking, laughing and drinking coffee as Shira Kammen, Danny Carnahan and Jim Oakden played Handel’s “Water Music,” followed by the Beatles’ “Rain.” Jimmy Katz, the loquacious proprietor of James Henry River Journeys, which offers trips for wine and classical music enthusiasts, regaled the group with stories while he toasted English muffins on a skillet. Spread on a table under the tarp were leftovers from the day before: grilled lamb, curried tuna, pasta salad and tomatoes rinsed in runoff from the tarp. The only things missing from the previous night’s menu were the wines that we had had with dinner, though coffee did seem more appropriate under the circumstances.

Eventually we packed our gear and shoved off into the river. The gray light served to compress scenes onshore into miniature tableaux: a bonsai-style oak on top of a boulder, a Dr. Seuss pine describing a “U” between its roots and crown. Fed by the rain, one waterfall after another emerged from the forest, cascading over moss-covered rocks into the deep green river. A family of brown-headed merganser ducks swam past as swallows darted above the surface of the water.

Just before we reached the takeout at Foster Bar, we passed the privately owned Illahe Lodge, in whose dining room the proposal was drafted for what became the National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. Shuttle drivers were waiting to take us back over the mountain to our cars; as the crew disassembled the rafts, I took a seat in the van by Joel Peterson, the winemaker at Ravenswood Winery. “Better in rain than underwater,” I offered, referring to an unnerving experience I’d undergone a couple of days earlier.

I’ve known Joel since I worked at his Sonoma winery during the 1984 harvest. Back then he labored full time in a hospital laboratory while making 5,000 cases of wine a year in his spare time. Today he produces more than 100 times that amount, including one of every six bottles of Zinfandel sold in the United States. Nevertheless, here he was, floating the Rogue River during the day and pouring wine in the evening as he has every summer since 1992.

For me this trip bore the character of a reunion--not only with Joel but with Jimmy Katz, whom I’ve known even longer. I met him in 1978, when we were both publicizing the endangerment of the Tuolumne River by a proposed dam in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Like the Rogue, the Tuolumne has since been preserved as a National Wild and Scenic River. It introduced me to rafting in general and James Henry River Journeys in particular.

James Henry is among the most eclectic and aesthetic of all the companies that run rivers in North America. It began operating 30 years ago, and in today’s world of outdoor mega-outfitters it remains a stubborn one-man enterprise reflecting the idiosyncratic orientations of its owner. (Katz, now 54, chose to christen it with his middle name because, “On the river I couldn’t offer steamed pastrami and Nova Scotia lox like all the Katz Delis back in Detroit.”) In addition to special themes such as wine tasting and classical music, most James Henry trips are accompanied by naturalists who explain the local flora and fauna. And Katz, who is also a first-rate landscape photographer, is generous with advice. Over the years, I’ve enjoyed his company on California’s Klamath, Idaho’s Salmon and Alaska’s Tatshenshini-Alsek and Noatak rivers. But I’d never gone on any of Jimmy’s wine-tasting trips with Joel.

This one was a five-day, 40-mile jaunt through the fir-covered wilderness of the Siskiyou Mountains. It began in typical summer weather. At our meeting place, the Galice Resort west of Grants Pass, the sky was blue and the temperature in the 90s--common conditions for southwestern Oregon in June. Our group of 30 boaters (including eight crew members, three musicians and one winemaker) was composed of people from as far away as Boston and Texas, wearing T-shirts and baseball caps that advertised places such as Utah and Alaska and wineries such as Lava Cap, Frog’s Leap and Rex Hill. Our mission required eight rafts, nine plastic coolers, 10 metal equipment boxes, six inflatable kayaks, six musical instruments, eight cases of wine and 50 stemmed glasses--not to mention a tent, a sleeping bag and two rubberized equipment duffels for every participant.

Under such circumstances, it can be hard to tell the difference between an epicurean extravaganza and a military maneuver. The sheer weight of our flotilla was cause for concern, given that the river level was uncharacteristically low last summer. The Rogue was running at only 1,000 cubic feet per second, compared with normal early-summer runoffs that were 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 times higher.

As we floated downstream past Grave Creek (named for a pioneer burial site), we inspected the customary high-water mark in an ancient lava flow onshore: a horizontal line etched into the rocks four feet above the current surface of the river. Jimmy called ours the “most intriguing” level he’d seen in years, serving to expose more rocks and narrow the channels between them. This would alter the hydraulics of rapids and allow less clearance for boats, which meant, among other things, that the guides would have their work cut out for them.

For the rest of us, it hardly registered. As soon as we pushed off into the current, I remembered why I consider the Rogue the “funnest” river in the West. Winding through the Cascade, Siskiyou and Coast ranges to the Pacific Ocean, it’s amply blessed by placid stretches that are hospitable to both basking and bathing, but it’s also punctuated by bracing rapids--certified by its status as a location for the Meryl Streep movie “The River Wild.” Sitting in the bow of the boat, feeling the wind pick up around me as each rapid approached, watching the stony bottom race past before the deceptively glassy surface suddenly exploded in spray, I was exhilarated to reestablish contact with serious white water.

I was in a paddle boat, which heightened the pleasure. As opposed to an oar boat, in which you simply sit back while a guide rows you and the group’s gear, a paddle boat transports nothing but people, with each individual equally responsible for propelling the raft downstream; it is directed by one bona fide crew member who issues commands. Katz was the captain in mine, which rendered the experience that much more amusing. Nobody is more entertaining on a river than Jimmy, a consummate Yiddish tale spinner who has a harrowing or hilarious anecdote for every inch of every river. He can even wax rhapsodic on the technical side of rafting--the sweep strokes, draw strokes and J-strokes with which one addresses rapids and their components.

“Look for the smooth ‘V’ at the top of a rapid,” Jimmy instructed as we floated. “That’s called the tongue--the sensual invitation to the rapid below, parting the way between two obstacles, usually boulders. Pillow rocks can sneak up on you--they lie just below the surface, and when water pours over a submerged rock and reverses direction, it forms a hole with a whirlpool effect. You can punch through a small one if you have enough force, but a big hole can flip your boat--or worse, trap you in its backspin indefinitely. That’s what we call a keeper.”

Most of the Rogue is a Class III (intermediate) white-water river, suitable for inexperienced boaters led by professional guides. It contains one difficult Class IV rapid, Blossom Bar, as well as the “very difficult to unrunnable” Class V-VI Rainie Falls, where the river is forced through a narrow chute and over a vertical drop. We weren’t allowed to run Rainie on a commercial outing, but as we neared the spot Katz recalled a time when he had shot it on a trip with professional guides.

“It was in a paddle boat,” he recalled. “I was in the stern. We were perfectly aligned going over the top, but when we hit the hole at the bottom of the falls, the rear of the boat got sucked underwater. Everybody in front was looking downriver and paddling like mad, so nobody even knew I was missing. About 50 yards downstream, the rear of the boat popped back up, bringing me to the surface with my paddle over my head, like Neptune and his trident. After that I never ran Rainie Falls again.”

“What were the conditions like that year?” I asked.

“Young and immortal,” Katz said, referring to his own condition. “And very high water.” Since our conditions were the opposite in every way, we passengers stood on the bank as the crew guided the boats through the rapid. Most of the river, which didn’t look very low to me, was pouring over a 15-foot drop, creating a caldron of foam at the bottom that resembled a billion well-shaken bottles of beer. Here and there, salmon could be seen flinging themselves about in the foam, trying to make their way upstream.

“What did the salmon say when he ran into a wall?” Peterson asked.

“What, Joel?”

“Dam!”

After that the Rogue calmed down, ushering in a kind of relaxation obtainable only on a river in summer. The cold water was a perfect antidote to the sun, so I put down my paddle and dove into the river, crawling and backstroking my way downstream on pace with the drifting boats. We passed a great blue heron in the shallows, standing so still that it looked like a statue. Then an osprey came gliding along, suddenly soaring to the top of a ridge with a cry. Here and there the Rogue River backpacking trail appeared along the banks, paralleling the river as it does for 41 miles between Grave Creek and Illahe. In late afternoon, we tied up and made camp at Whisky Creek, site of a miner’s cabin built in 1880. Although in summer the Bureau of Land Management allows 120 people (a mix of private and professionally guided groups) to embark on the wild section of the Rogue every day, they generally strive to stay out of one another’s way. Occasionally we came into contact with other parties on the river, but we were alone at this campsite, which was complete with an outhouse and sleeping terraces. From the elevated place where I put my tent, I had a view of multiple ridgelines receding downstream, back-lit by the setting sun. While the musicians set up and the guides made dinner, I wandered aimlessly along the bank. Motorboats are banned from the Rogue between Grave Creek and Blossom Bar, so the only sounds were those of the river and the limbs of trees tossed by a breeze wafting up the canyon, tempering the heat. The atmosphere was so calming that it could almost be called narcotic--and that was before I’d had any wine.

On the evenings that followed, Joel would pour Chardonnay and Gewurztraminer as well as Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. It was fitting, though, that on our first night he broke out the Zinfandel. The ubiquitousness of Ravenwood’s label can be largely attributed to its “Vintners Blend,” a low-priced, lip-smacking table wine. But Ravenswood is also sought out by cork-sniffing connoisseurs, courtesy of its high-end, single-vineyard Zins--intense and meticulously crafted from old and prestigious vineyards such as Napa Valley’s Dickerson, Sonoma Valley’s Barricia, Dry Creek Valley’s Teldeschi and Louis Martini’s Monte Rosso in the Mayacamas Mountains between Sonoma and Napa.

As it happened, those were precisely the wines that Peterson was pouring, accompanied by a sundown discourse on the origins of his wines and his interest in winemaking. Having grown up with a wine collector for a father, Joel started sitting in on professional tastings when he was 9. As an adult, he apprenticed with the late Joseph Swan, who made legendary Zinfandel at his home near the Russian River. To establish his own niche, Joel decided to focus on Zin, “because it was the only grape in California that had the same characteristics as old vines in Europe.”

As cases in point, he guided us through his wines as artfully as Jimmy had handled the rapids. For my money, they all married sublimely with the salmon and mango-papaya salsa that we ate for dinner. After Joel’s talk, the musicians made their way through a repertoire of Bach and Vivaldi, interspersed with Yiddish numbers, Celtic jigs and even a few original tunes.

As a shining crescent moon descended, “Moon River” was the inevitable accompaniment. The Rogue surged past, murmuring and disappearing downstream.

“It’s amazing,” someone mused. “The river never stops.” He may not have been sober, but he wasn’t wrong. I had planned to retire to my tent and read, but as the evening wore on, I found it impossible to tear myself away. Invigorating outdoor activity during the day, near-naked lounging on the beach at night, savoring wine while listening to lyrical tunes: This, I thought for the umpteenth time on a river-rafting trip, was the life.

The next day i had a chance to examine the other side of the equation. I elected to spend the morning in an inflatable kayak, where I’d have only myself to rely on. After several trips, I knew this was the most exciting way to experience the river. If you get dumped in a rapid, you just hang onto your paddle and keep your feet pointed downstream--sooner or later the current slows and somebody reunites you with your boat. Duly outfitted in life vests and helmets, six of us intrepid soloists set off downstream.

The first rapid, Tyee (Chinook for “chief”), was shaped like a question mark with a rock ledge on the right. It was an easy warmup--not too technical but enough to quicken the flow of blood. The second rapid, Wildcat, could be run either right or left, but was said to be more fun in the latter direction, which featured a negotiable series of rocks and forgiving waves.

As warned, however, low runoff had altered the situation. Now the left channel was a narrow drop that--thanks to a submerged rock that was nearer to the surface than normal--had turned into a mini-waterfall with a big hole at the bottom. We discovered this only after we’d entered the rapid. In other words, too late.

As I went over the drop, the hole opened directly below me and sucked me into its maw, ripping the paddle from my grip and the boat from my body. Immediately upon going underwater, my face hit a rock. The life vest buoyed me upward, but as I neared the surface, I encountered an immovable object: my kayak, held stubbornly motionless above my head by the swirling current. I tried to shove it out of the way, but my strength was no match for the force of the river. I’d already been underwater longer than ever before in a rapid, and the air in my lungs was waning. Maybe this is what Jimmy meant when he called the water level “intriguing”?

I’d like to say that next I noticed a radiant white light--and, as a matter of fact, I did. It was sunlight shining through the white water, illuminating every bubble and stream in the churning rapid. Suddenly my face broke the surface of the water and I was spit downstream.

“You were under for a long time,” someone observed as I grabbed the side of a raft, gasping. As it turned out, four of the six kayakers had flipped in the hole. An oar boat got stuck on a gravel bar above it, requiring a crew member to swim the shallows and attach a line so that others onshore could pull the raft free. In the process, Danny Carnahan’s cello--built in 1790 and enclosed in a soft case on top of the gear--sustained cracks in its soundboard.

“When I started playing the cello, I sure as hell never expected to pitch it down a river through a rapid like that,” Carnahan said that night as he replaced the broken strings and popped the wood into place. “If the river gods demand my cello as a sacrifice, though, so be it. I need time in the wilderness to flush out the nonsense that’s always running around inside my brain at home.”

That night Joel poured wines from 1994--a Wood Road zinfandel from the Russian River district, a Pickberry Meritage from Sonoma Mountain, a Sangiacomo Merlot from the Carneros region and a Rh0ne-style blend containing Syrah, Grenache and Mourvedre from Sonoma Valley. With grilled lamb and chutney, cucumber salad and garlic mashed potatoes, the wines almost erased my memory of being trapped underwater.

“There are things about scary, harrowing experiences that buoy you up in life after you’ve survived,” Joel said. He was speaking from experience. Several years ago, after capsizing at the entrance to a rapid, he had gone over three small waterfalls, gotten trapped inside a hole and bumped into several more boulders before he made it to safety.

“When you’re tumbling around in a rapid, there comes a moment when you realize, ‘I could lose it all here,’ ” he said. “After an experience like that, it’s nice to be able to reaffirm your connection to the earth and humanity with a good wine. You find yourself thinking, ‘That wasn’t so bad. What was I worried about?”’

Joel’s close call had occurred in 1994--the same year he made the wines we were now tasting. Seven years on, they had all acquired the complexity that comes with age. In place of exuberant fruit (youth and immortality), they exuded the burnished wood, roses-and-violets character that comes with full maturity. Moreover, Joel observed, ’94 had been a cool year with a long growing season, resulting in “rounded, succulent, well-formed products” that are aging well. “Every wine is a time capsule,” he said. “It captures a moment in history.”

A moment that continues to evolve. As dusk descended after dinner, the musicians played an Irish ballad called “The Grey Funnel Line”: “But the hardest time in a sailor’s day/Is to watch the sun as it fades away.” Listening to the slow, sentimental song while sipping capsules of history with old friends and new acquaintances, all brought together by the power of the Rogue, I couldn’t help noticing anew that the river never stops.

GUIDEBOOK: Floating in Style on Oregon’s Rogue

Telephone numbers and prices: The area code for Oregon’s Rogue River region is 541. Room rates are for a double for one night. Meal prices are for two, food only.

Getting there: Most Rogue River trips begin in Galice, 15 miles west of I-5 near Grants Pass. The closest airport, in Medford, provides shuttle service to local motels. Alaska Airlines has nonstop flights to Medford from Los Angeles International Airport, and United and Alaska airlines have connecting service.

River rafting trips: James Henry River Journeys, P.O. Box 807, Bolinas, Calif., 94924; (800) 786-1830 or (415) 868-1836, fax (415) 868-9033, www.riverjourneys.com. This year’s four- and five-day Rogue River wine-tasting and classical-music excursions take place in June. Prices are from $745 to $855 per adult and $670 for children.

From July 5 to 7, James Henry will run a wine-tasting and classical-music trip on the Klamath River in Northern California; $450 per adult, $385 per child.

While James Henry River Journeys is unique, it isn’t the only outfitter on the Rogue. More than three dozen companies offer trips down the wild section of the river with varying emphases, including camping, staying in lodges, fishing and transporting gear for hikers. In addition to these three- to five-day white-water trips, some companies also offer half-day and one-day excursions (some of them motorized) on the tamer, recreational part of the river upstream between Grants Pass and Grave Creek. A list of all Rogue River outfitters and their schedules and telephone numbers can be obtained from the Bureau of Land Management, 3040 Biddle Road, Medford, Ore., 97504; 618-2200, fax 618-2400, www.or.blm.gov/Rogueriver.

Where to stay: Many participants choose to spend the nights immediately before and after the trip at the Galice Resort, 11744 Galice Road, Merlin, Ore., 97532; 476-3818, fax 471-0188, www.galice.com. It has its own restaurant. Rates: $65 for a cabin for two, $85 for a room in the lodge. Groups of 12 or more can rent the entire lodge starting at $475. A bed-and-breakfast inn close to Galice is the Pine Meadow Inn, 1000 Crow Road, Merlin, Ore., 97532; telephone and fax 471-6277 or (800) 554-0806 for reservations, www.pinemeadowinn.com. Rates: $90 to $120.

Other accommodations are available in Grants Pass, which is directly on I-5: Comfort Inn, 1889 NE 6th St., 479-8301, fax 955-9721. Rate: $70; Shilo Inn, 1880 NW 6th St., (800) 222-2244, fax 474-7344, www.shiloinns.com. Rates: $70 to $80; Riverside Inn, 971 SE 6th St., 476-6873, fax 474-9848, www.riverside-inn.com. Rates: $69 to $119.

Where to eat: A favorite Thai restaurant of Jimmy Katz’s crew is Pongsri’s, 1571 NE 6th St. in Grants Pass; 955-1662; $14.

For more information: For restaurants and lodgings in the Grants Pass area, contact www.visitgrantspass.org or the Grants Pass Chamber of Commerce, 1995 NW Vine St., Grants Pass, Ore., 97526; 476-7717, fax 476-9574, www.grantspasschamber.org.

Oregon Tourism Commission, 775 Summer St. NE, Salem, Ore., 97301-1282; (800) 547-7842 or (503) 986-0000, fax (503) 986-0001, www.traveloregon.com.

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David Darlington is the author of four books, including “Zin: The History and Mystery of Zinfandel” (Da Capo Press, 2002).