Ambassador Andy Graham sends in this trip report!

August 5, 2008

Photos

A fun July: July started with a trip down the Rouge River with Dan and
now Mrs. Lizzy Rubado. They were married in one of the most perfect
places a kayaking couple could be married: Paradise Lodge in the middle
of the Rouge River Wilderness. Over thirty of us kayaked, rafted,
floated and swam down the nearly 30 miles to the lodge, with great water
flows. Another 20-30 friends and family hiked and jet boated up to
the lodge. In total the boating contingency spent anywhere from 5-7 days
on the water, with skill levels from pro-expert to "never been on a
river before". All had a great time, with a great couple.

From the Rouge, Rebecca and I drove strait to Utah and jumped on
a Desolation / Grey Canyon trip. We had read the reports about the
masses of misquotes at the put-in, but let me tell you! WOW they were
BAD! Real bad! When we stopped rigging for the night
there was still one poor soul working on his boat, and in the morning
when we went back to the put-in there was only a dried up skeleton
laying on the beach next to his boat. Okay, okay…it wasn’t quite that bad…
but close. The only way to be comfortable was with a head to toe mosquito net
suit. I did have the "Bug-off" clothing and hat from Ex-Officio that
really did do a good job detouring the little rascals; I’m sure
without it, my skeleton carcass would have been lying next to that
other guy’s bones in the morning as well.

The river was great. It was a total no stress river with the biggest rapids being ones you
could float with a paco pad. If you’re looking for big whitewater this
definitely is not the trip you want. The water was flowing an awesome
8000-10000cfs with a water temp that hit 80. Because of the
flow, the more appropriate name may have been the "Brownish
River" instead of the Green River. During my years of kayaking I have
came across a lot of strange things in and next to the river. I
have witnessed more than one car going off the road and into the river
while we were in it, passed fishing bears, twice been nearly stampeded
by a herd of elk crossing the river, floated through days of Idaho
wildfires (and even had burning trees fall between our boats as we
passed), nearly been taken out by an Apache attack helo flying a combat
training mission at water level, come across countless rescues, and
even found a dead body. But, I had a new one on this trip…

On day three as we floated peacefully along, we saw smoke in the distance. At first
we thought it must be a lightning-caused fire on the plateau from the
previous night’s storm. As we proceeded down the river it soon became
apparent the fire was actually at river level. We passed a
burned out camp and
noted the fire had traveled downstream, engulfing the camp we
were shooting for and the adjacent side canyon. "Darn
some careless idiot!"

As we were floating by the devastation, one of
the rafters in our group said, "Hey Andy! What do you make of that
debris up there?"

Looking up over the river bank, past experience told me immediately what I was seeing.
As I got out of my Superstar and climbed up the bank, it became clear that it was
indeed the remains of a fuselage from a small aircraft, smashed and scattered in a burned
out boulder field.

Just as I was approaching the plane, a BLM helicopter
landed down stream and a small plane buzzed overhead. Unsure if
anyone had been to the crash site yet, I decided to take a closer look, considering
the very remote possibility that there was a survivor and I could help.
As I got closer I started believing that this may have been a survivable
crash. Looking closely, it seemed that they did get out and not burn up in the plane!
Back in the boat and a little down stream, we encountered another group
and got the whole story. The day prior as they were floating, they saw a
small column of smoke coming from the river side. As they rowed closer
to investigate, a bloody man busted out of the brush yelling "Help! My
brother in still in the fire!" As they ran through the flames, they found
a severely injured man on a rock next to the burning plane. They carried
him back through the flames to their raft. They then preceded downstream
and treated their injuries until the next day when a group arrived with
a sat phone, and a med helo from Salt Lake transported the injured men to
the hospital.

The story goes something like this: The pilot was a flight
instructor from Prescott, AZ. He and his brother rented the plane, and
they were making the trip of a lifetime flying to the Artic Circle. As
they flew over Desolation Canyon they decided to take a closer look .
With the plane being slightly over weight from all
the camping gear, and the air being thin from the altitude and heat, the
plane was unable to climb out of the canyon. Apparently they circled for
several hours and finally decided they had no choice but to attempt an
emergency landing. Believing they had picked a fairly smooth and level
spot to ditch, they had actually dropped into a large bolder field.

I was thinking if I couldn’t climb out due to weight, I would have done
some littering of gear out the window, and maybe even hoped my brother
could swim as I pushed him out into the river as we flew over. From the
reports they should make a full recovery.

The rest of the trip was much less eventful with warm water, great people, good food, and
weather. However there continued to be these nasty little flies on the
river that just kept coming. Yes, I am obsessing on the bugs just so I
don’t have so much competition when permit time comes next year. This
is a great family trip, despite the bugs. I want to take my 4 year old
on it next year. So if you get a permit, give me a call.

From Utah it was back to Oregon for several days of EZ boating on the
North Umpqua with four year old Cedar, Rebecca and her
parents. Now back to work at the Fire Department for a couple of weeks
to make up for all the time I was off playing in July.