[ water roaring ]
- The number one question I get is,
"Why in the world do you row a wood boat in rock gardens
that can smash your boat with any mistake?"
- They're like building a beautiful piece of furniture
to kick down the stairs,
and kicking it down the stairs is the point.
That's why you build it.
[ waves lapping boat ]
- When you see a wooden boat in this setting,
it will literally turn your head
and turn the clock back 50 to 75 years.
IAN MCCLUSKEY: On this chilly October morning, Greg Hatten
and Randy Dersham have returned to the Rogue River.
They are setting off with their river buddies
for a four-day trip.
The thing that draws this group together is the passion
for the river and river running.
Some 20,000 people float in this section of the Rogue
each year, but these guys do it a little differently.
This is Greg,
and the beautiful wooden boat that he's rowing
is a hand-built replica of a boat
that ran the Rogue back in the 1930s.
And this is Randy and his dog, Remy.
He's in a boat so new that you can smell
the final coat of varnish still drying.
RANDY: This is the first time this boat's been down the river,
the first day that it's been wet.
You could say that their river running style is classic.
And the river they've picked to run is not just any river.
This is the wild and scenic Rogue River.
It's a 34-mile stretch renowned for its raw beauty.
In fact, it was one of the original eight rivers
in America to be protected under the Wild and Scenic Act.
For river runners, it's considered
one the classic rivers.
[ birds chirping ]
It cuts a deep gorge through the mountains
of Southern Oregon, and along the way,
offers dozens of rocky rapids to navigate -- a challenge,
even for seasoned river runners like Greg and Randy.
We built the boat to come down here and, to me, this is, like,
the ultimate technical water to be running a wood boat through.
Greg and Randy aren't the kind of guys
to brag about their backgrounds,
but they were both McKenzie River guides.
They have run every major river in the Northwest
and taken their wooden boats
down the Grand Canyon several times.
This trip is an annual tradition for them.
They run the Rogue every October.
But even with their experience, taking wooden boats
down the rocky Rogue will test their skill.
Within an hour of launching,
they reach the first major obstacle: Rainie Falls.
GREG: And you can't run it.
It's Class V, VI, and it would tear your boats up.
They can't run their boats over Rainie Falls, but to the side
of it is a rocky channel called the Fish Ladder.
Okay, coming.
I might eddy out right through that drop.
The fish ladder is the way to get wooden boats
from one side down to the other side.
We line the boats.
Another go, I got it.
Watch the line.
- Come down this way!
- Whoa, that was quick! - Come this way!
It's the narrowest part of their trip --
literally, a stair step of rocks.
So we wrangle our boats down and there's some danger in that.
You've really got to be coordinated
and quick on your feet.
But that's the only way to get from the top
down to the bottom and continue your river run.
Not bad.
Didn't look pretty but...
That lining of the boats around Rainie
is kind of a rite of passage, if you will, for river runners.
As you watch those little drift boats on the river,
you can see there's so much more action.
There's so much more activity.
They're so much more responsive
than just about any other type of craft.
They'll give you a ride on the river
unlike anything else that's out here.
And you develop almost a relationship with a boat
when it responds to your touch
and it delivers you safely on the other side of a rapid
because of the dynamics of the boat and the way it can move.
That's pretty special.
The first time I saw a wooden drift boat
come around the corner on the McKenzie River,
I fell in love, and then I started pursuing,
how do I get one of those?
And the conclusion was, you build one.
And when you spend that much time laboring over every cut,
every joint, every angle, caulking the seams, varnishing,
sanding, you develop a pretty close relationship
and an intimate knowledge of the boat that you're working on,
because you spend so much time
paying attention to the little details.
RANDY: Although it's simple,
there is this beauty in the simplicity.
Just really nice swooping clean lines that relate to each other
are what the drift boat's all about.
When it's made out of wood,
you get this special connection to nature.
You get the connection to the trees.
GREG: I've run a lot of miles with Randy on the rivers,
and he's a good oarsman, he's a good boat builder.
He knows the history.
We're kindred spirits in that way.
He likes to run old school, and so do I,
and so we're a pretty good pair.
RANDY: What do you smell, Remy?
Find a bear.
GREG: I love it when he brings the dog.
It's nice to have a dog in camp because this time of year,
there's a lot of bears down here.
And they sound the alarm if there's a bear around,
and the bears are pretty leery
when they know there's a dog around.
- That's a pretty good-sized bear.
- Hey, bear!
GREG: You sleep better when you know
there's a dog in camp with you.
At camp, you can see another aspect of Greg's passion
for river running's past.
He calls this style canvas and wool.
I kind of came up with the idea of, okay,
if we're gonna replicate the boats,
let's replicate the camping.
[ crickets chirping ]
When you see a canvas tent set up in a place like this,
it's just another one of those reminders of the history
and the guys who came before us and the way they camped,
the style they camped.
It's nostalgic.
Folks have been taking wooden drift boats
down Oregon rivers for more than a century.
On the Rogue, one of the earliest
was the popular Western writer Zane Grey.
His novels first introduced the Rogue to a wide audience.
His cabin still stands along the riverside.
So it's kind of cool to see
where he actually hung out and did his work.
I can see how you could be very inspired in a place like this.
[ water rushing ]
As the team continues down the river,
they pass pumpkins precariously perched on rocks.
I think it started out as a guide tradition
to put a few pumpkins out in the fall.
[ water sloshing ]
This trip, we've probably pulled about 40 pumpkins off the water.
Yep.
- Unusual. - Yeah.
This is an unusually increasing amount of pumpkins.
And ten years ago when we were doing this,
we didn't see very many.
I mean, you'd see a pumpkin here and a pumpkin there,
and it was kinda cute, kinda clever,
'cause they'd be in hard-to-reach places
and make you think, "How did that get there?"
RANDY: And now there are so many people
putting pumpkins in the river
that it certainly is a mark of mankind onto the river.
And pumpkins have become, in my opinion, graffiti down here.
I actually like the pumpkins.
[ crickets chirping ]
At camp, the mood is subdued.
Tomorrow brings the two biggest hazards of the whole trip.
The boaters bed down and hope to get some sleep.
[ insects chirping ]
In the morning, Greg is quiet as he packs his boat.
Ahead: the turbulent Mule Creek Canyon.
Here, the river cuts through
the solid basalt of the Cascade Mountains.
[ water rushing ]
GREG: The Mule Creek Canyon, the water is rushing through there,
so quickly that you're literally improvising almost every move.
- Woo! [ laughter ]
You've got very little room to navigate.
In most places, you're touching the wall of the canyon
with the tips of your oars.
[ oars scraping rock ]
RANDY: It decides what it wants to do.
It is literally sitting there percolating.
Most folks do this in river rafts
that can bounce off rocks.
But wooden boats don't bounce -- they break.
[ oars scraping and river roaring ]
Mule Creek Canyon releases the wooden drift boats.
Randy's shiny new boat is now scratched and dinged.
Luckily, it's not leaking.
There's no time to relax.
Around the bend is the most dangerous rapid
of the entire trip.
GREG: Blossom Bar is a notorious rapid on the Rogue
that has a long history of wrecking trips.
There are a couple of moves in Blossom
that if you don't get right,
you get into big trouble very quickly.
At the scout point, when you're looking at the moves
that you have to make, I mean,
it's more than butterflies.
I wanted to puke.
The very first move is a pull left to right
to avoid what we call picket fence.
And if you miss that move, you're in big trouble.
People have lost their river craft or lost their lives,
and it just makes you appreciate the fact
that you've got to get it right,
because there are very real consequences if you don't.
It's good when it goes right.
It's goes bad real fast.
[ chuckles ] Yeah.
[ oars rippling water ]
With Blossom behind them,
the river and the boaters' moods relax.
The current and the oars slow,
as if neither wants to let go of the mountains just yet.
There are no more rapids to run,
and ahead of them, their cars are waiting
to take them back to cities and day jobs and such.
So they savor the slow final stretch.
[ wind blowing and birds chirping ]
What a good day.
It's a chance to fish,
and perhaps more importantly, to appreciate this experience
where river running's present and past overlap seamlessly,
synchronized by the river's pull.