Rafting the Rogue River with one less Dam

After more than 2 decades of work, litigation, contemplation, bickering, arguing, crying, screaming, laughing, and talking, on October 9th, 2009 Savage Rapids Dam was cleared and the Rogue River flowed unabrupted through this area for the first time since 1921, allowing a floatilla of rafts, kayaks, drift boats, and jet boats to freely navigate through its channel. Sadly, this profound event did not go down without incident. Friday afternoon a man was killed when his jetboat crashed just downstream of the dam and Saturday an experienced river boatman wrapped his driftboat on a snag just down from the Dam. Outside of these two incidents, plenty of rafts, drift boats, and kayaks succesfully floated down this new section of the Rogue River.Photo: Jamie Lusch Mail Tribune

We are very excited to see how this channel settles in. For at least this first season the channel is expected to be in transition as years of silt and the gravel from the coffer dam settles, moves, and gets washed away. There is some great potential for this to become a fun little rapid. For more information on the Savage Rapids Dam and the other Dam removal projects on the Rogue River check out the Mail Tribune.
Here are some videos I found on youtube as well as some pictures from the Mail Tribune