By Bob Van Leer

  After breakfast we were off on the river again. Camp was already struck and a guide took off ahead of us on a raft with all the camping gear. Two of the guides slept by the food supply to keep bears away.

  I decided to try one of the tahitis and took it from above Dulog about five miles to Winkle Bar. It is a lot of fun to go through the rapids in the little craft. I found that in a rapid you are not worried about anything because it takes 100% of your attention just to get through upright. A couple of times I came close to losing it but always managed to recover.

  At Kelsey Creek we crossed the line and were back in Curry county.

   At Winkle Bar we stopped to look around. It is the site of author Zane Grey's cabin which is still preserved. The bar is now owned by the Haas family, makers of Levi jeans and clothing. A caretaker keeps the place up. The weather continued warm and any complaint brought a bucket of water over your head to cool down.

  Below Winkle Bar signs of the 1969(?) Quail creek Burn are still quite evident. About six miles below Kelsey Creek is Marial, a small settlement and the easternmost settlement in Curry county. We stopped to look over the Rogue River Ranch, long known as the Billings Ranch and then the Anderson Ranch. The Forest Service and BLM bought the ranch from Jack Anderson in 1970. Archeological digs have shown the ranch to be inhabited at least 9,000-10,000 years. A museum is being made of the old Billings house.

MULE CREEK CANYON

  Just below Marial is Mule Creek Canyon, the narrowest gorge on the river. At this low-water stage, at it's narrowest, the river can't be more than 12-15 feet wide. It has to be extremely deep. The tahitis were taken out of the water, except for the one paddled by McNair, and kept out until we were past Blossom Bar. Past the worst part of the canyon, the entrance, our guides ordered us all out of our crafts. We swam through the canyon for a mile or two (easy with a life jacket on). In the canyon at Stair Creek Falls, dozens of salmon were holding in the colder water and a couple even tried to climb the falls and got stranded in small pools.

  Below the canyon is Blossom Bar, the worst rapid the rafts run. We all made it through successfully. We drifted through Devil's Stairs and met the first of the power boats coming up from Gold Beach. The first two were piloted by Bill Boice and his cousin, Court Boice.

  We stopped for the night at Half Moon Bar, across the river from Paradise Bar. The lodge is run by Larry and Clare Bowen of Agness. It's a beautiful place on a flat bar above the river. It has a tiny airstrip for the courageous pilot. Otherwise access is by boat.

  The bar was homesteaded by Andrew O. Huggins, whose name lives on in Huggins Canyon just below the bar. A copy of his land patent is in the lodge signed by President Calvin Coolidge on Oct. 5, 1925. Huggins died in 1952. Working at the lodge is a former Gold Beach resident, Pat Haft.

  We spent a pleasant evening at the lodge and were well fed evening and morning. McNair left us early and went out with a supply boat. But we picked up his son, Scotty, who had come up on another boat. For those who live and work on the river, it is similar to a small town except it is only as wide as the river but 80 miles long. People, material and information trade freely all along the river. An incident at Black Bar will be known in Gold Beach in hours.

RIVER WEDDING

  On the beach across from Half Moon, Denny and Helen were married just a month before on June 11. A total of 50 persons attended the wedding, Denny said. They came up on one passenger boat and three private boats. Helen lived in Gold Beach for the past four years and works at Gold Beach Lumber.