Appeal Tribune
❚ WEDNESDAY, APRIL 29, 2020 ❚ 1B
Outdoors
Illinois River offers
Oregon's wildest rafting trip
Rafters take on the Illinois River’s Green Wall Class V rapids. WILL VOLPERT/SPECIAL TO THE STATESMAN JOURNAL
Zach Urness
Salem Statesman Journal
USA TODAY NETWORK
Editors note: Oregon's outdoors is
largely closed to outdoor recreation fol-
lowing COVID-19 restrictions. Until that
changes, the Statesman Journal will
feature "greatest hits" from outdoors
writer Zach Urness each week in a nod to
armchair adventure and for future trip
planning purposes.
This story was originally published
Feb. 15, 2017
------
Deep and emerald green in the can-
yons, boiling and ill-tempered through
the rapids, the Illinois River begins in
the wilderness and never surrenders
that independence.
The river is wild at its birth, tumbling
down the Siskiyou Mountains with the
reckless energy of an adolescent child,
through a sunlit forest of weeping
spruce and tiger lilies along the Oregon
and California border.
Even when the Illinois bubbles into
the mainstem near Cave Junction, in
southwest Oregon, the stopover near
civilization is brief. The reclusive
stream wraps itself around Eight Dollar
Mountain and swings west — at last
turning toward the ocean — where it
A group of rafters on Southern
Oregon’s Illinois River. WILL
VOLPERT/SPECIAL TO THE STATESMAN JOURNAL
slices into a gateway of reddish-orange
mountains that mark the Kalmiopsis
Wilderness.
That was the place I greeted the Illi-
nois River last May, along with a scat-
tered collection of river guides and kay-
akers, at Miami Bar west of Selma.
Protected by the Wild and Scenic Riv-
ers Act in 1984, the 31-mile wilderness
run between Miami Bar (near Grants
Pass) and Oak Flat (near Gold Beach)
takes boaters into the isolation of Ore-
gon’s most remote country.
Rattlesnakes patrol the shores and
black bears roam the edges of the river,
which got its name from miners who
hailed from Illinois around 1847. The ul-
tramafic rocks that rise above the Illi-
nois originated in the basement of the
planet — pushed up nearly 50 miles
from the earth's upper mantle — and are
found almost nowhere else in the world.
Both beautiful and dangerous, the Il-
ly will seduce you with her sights,
sounds and smells, then pummel you
across more than eight Class IV rapids
and one notorious Class V.
Above all, the Illinois is an adventure.
When you set your boat upon that emer-
ald water and head into the mountains,
you’re officially leaving civilization be-
hind.
Onto Oregon's wildest river with
the right team
Will Volpert, 30, of Ashland has run
the wild Illinois a whopping 39 times,
getting to know the river at high flows,
low flows and even with 4 inches of
snow on the ground.
He grew up in a family of rafting out-
fitters, manning the oars when he was 13
years old. His ability to organize trips
isn't shocking.
Still, his reputation on the Illinois has
grown, and it's easy to see why.
“If Will Volpert ever invites you on an
Illinois trip, just go,” local kayaker Na-
than Barnard said. “Doesn't matter what
you have going on, work, school, what-
ever, just go.”
I took that advice, and by 5:30 p.m.,
our boats had launched from Miami Bar.
It was a late start, but after a quick 8
miles, we reached Pine Flat and made
camp below a purple-orange sky. Tents
were erected on grassy ground, as the
smell of wood smoke and chicken soup
wafted through the air.
Going on a trip made up almost en-
tirely of river guides is an interesting ex-
perience. They’re simultaneously the
most mature and immature people
you'll ever meet. One moment they'll
harass you about the danger of your in-
adequate life jacket. The next, they'll tell
you a story about the time they acciden-
tally got their dog stoned.
In the end, you’re always glad to have
them, in case you need to be saved from
a watery grave.
Their expertise seemed especially
apt on the second day of the Illinois,
where the river begins to show its teeth.
Beginning at Fawn Falls (IV), there's a
section of nasty, technical rapids that
seem to take pleasure in punishing
boats that didn’t take clean lines.
See RAFTING, Page 2B
Outdoor groups go virtual with access locked down
Fishing
Henry Miller
Guest columnist
To mangle an old saying, desperate
times call for virtual measures.
Faced with the social-distancing re-
quirements amid the potentially lethal
coronavirus pandemic, outdoor groups
are maintaining connections on the net.
Members of the Salem-based Wil-
lamette Valley Mushroom Society, as an
example, held a joint April “meeting”
this week with the Cascade Mycological
Society via online platforms Zoom and
YouTube.
The scheduled presentation (this is
being written prior to the link-up) was
titled “Oregon Burn Morels” with Trent
Blizzard (yep, that’s what he goes by),
the author of “Burn Morels — a modern
forager’s guide to finding mushrooms.”
In a similar vein, the Portland-based
Oregon Bass & Panfish Club is going the
virtual route.
The featured speaker for the can-
celed March meeting was Zip Decker —
another all-time great name — offering
insights into bass fishing from his near-
ly two-decade experience as a tourna-
ment angler and past president of the
Columbia River Bassmasters.
He generously offered to do his pres-
entation via podcast with Bass & Pan-
Social distancing was not a factor during Free Fishing Weekend at the dock at
Hoover Campground in 2013. HENRY MILLER/SPECIAL TO THE STATESMAN JOURNAL
fish Club members provided the link via
an “email blast.”
Looks as if given the statewide clo-
sures of meeting sites and the continu-
ing stay-home, avoid-crowds, social-
distancing requirements, virtual could
be the new reality for outdoor-themed
groups until things get back to some sort
of a new normal.
Currently, meetings and group activ-
ities such as fishing, mushroom forays,
birding outings, hikes and volunteer
projects have been canceled or post-
poned across the board through the end
of April, optimistically speaking.
And opportunities for all of us are
similarly pinched.
State parks and boat ramps in the
Beaver State as well as access points
and recreation sites in national forests
in Oregon and Washington are on lock-
down.
Similar rules are in effect for group
gathering spots such as city and county
park playgrounds and picnic sites.
Oregon residents still can fish and
hunt in-state with the admonition to
keep outings close to home.
But prohibitions are in effect for out-
of-staters for fishing, hunting, clam-
ming and crabbing in Oregon and every-
body, residents included, in Washing-
ton.
In fact, outdoor adventures of late
have taken on the feel of a ride on an ex-
cursion train through the Canadian
Rockies, minus the fellow passengers.
It’s almost exclusively a nose pressed
against the vehicle window, drive-by
experience.
Digital dumpster: When my mas-
sive 3-terabyte backup external hard
drive did a patty melt a couple of
months ago, I lost a couple of decades of
digital photos, records, writings etc.
Mostly.
A lot of the stuff originally had been
loaded on to a series of smaller drives
both at home and at the Statesman
Journal prior to retirement, with much
of the contents transferred to the God-
zilla drive.
Anybody else have a 750 megabyte
Verbatim external drive about the size
and weight of a carry-on airline bag full
of rocks?
I digress.
And what better project to take on
during social isolation than going
through five drives and 20 years of digi-
tal hoarding?
Long story longer, I found a bunch of
classic photos, some that I took, others
that I got from the Associated Press to
use as screen savers, that definitely do
not involve social distancing.
Ah, memories.
Fishing thought for the week: “A
good storyteller is a person who has a
good memory and hopes other people
haven’t.” — Irvin Cobb, American hu-
morist (1876-1944).
Contact Henry Miller via email at
HenryMillerSJ@gmail.com