Up The River On A Fire Hose

The trip was a steady climb all the way. Hill after hill of water was ascended, some of them six feet high. Adding all the hills together, there was a total climb from start to finish of 1,000 feet of river. It was necessary to encounter the crest of each liquid hill with enough momentum to carry the boat over the crest. Otherwise, with the intake scoop sucking air instead of water, there was an immediate falling off of power.

Wooldridge ran into just such an obstacle in the form of a six-foot-high fall pouring around a huge rock—offering the only place to pass in the whole width of the river. His boat breasted the fall, teetered for a second on the crest, then slid back. For the second attempt the boat was emptied of cargo, and Inkrote stepped on shore with a safety line secured to the bow of the boat. Giving it full power, Wooldridge rammed up to the very edge once more, then slid back, his craft lacking the final bit of push to climb the grade.

While the rest of us toted the smaller boat around the fall, Stallman in his lightened two-engine boat zoomed up and over on the first try.

Farther along we were faced with a sheer 14-foot-high wall of water. Salmon, trying to leap up the fall, eventually discovered a fish ladder and continued upriver—and we were almost as lucky: a narrow channel had been carved by nature around the fall. By rolling the boats over saplings, we were able to maneuver them one at a time up the channel till the water reached ankle depth, after which the jets could drive the boats the rest of the way.

When we landed at Grants Pass on the fourth day, scars on the boats' bottoms showed convincingly how we had tempted the Rogue to do its worst. But the mere fact that we had arrived was sufficient proof that jet drives had defied the river.