Get Out There | 01 Navigating The Lower Rogue River
Robert Biscarret and Billy Newman
Robert tells his story of navigating the technical rapids on the lower rogue river.
Get Out There Podcast
billynewmanphoto.com
Hey what’s going on this is Billy Newman i’m here today recording a test podcast with my friend Robert biscarrat Robert how you doing go well how are you doing doing good man i’m happy that we’re trying out this FaceTime audio call and it sounds like it’s working pretty good so we’ll try and we’ll try to work it out over time to see if it works alright but I feel the my idea is coming over to you well yeah everything is coming in loud and clear excited to do this should be fun ya know because if we can kind of get a rhythm down doing it it would be pretty easy I mean gosh man just got your phone right now is that cake but yeah we never do a podcast with you maybe about what i figured it’s just like a lot of the outdoor topic so we’re both interested in you know are just some of the other stories or camping trips that we’ve done in the past it would be cool to talk about yeah yeah I I don’t really know anything about anything outdoors related but yeah but I know like the cock oh man you know plenty I’m sure but yeah i was thinking of well you should tell us a little bit about some of the raft guide experience that you had in the past because i think i’d be kind of just thing to start to break down a little bit like see you when did you start guiding stuff uh you mean like season or what did I just start I guess just like rowing or anything like that like yeah when did you start in general yeah I started like a four years ago and you know I kind of fell into it was something I wanted to do for a long time but the opportunity really presented itself at the time it did and and wow man what an experience it’s it’s really interesting and learning that you know you take it for granted or you know you just kind of a shame that it doesn’t take much to do and then you get behind the oars and then all of a sudden it’s just really eye-opening really gain a respect for the people that are good at it yeah I can only imagine really cuz uh like I had that job down the river on the Rogue River for a while so I kinda understand the atmosphere of what’s going on down there but like even the times that you rep lemme row just for a few minutes ago my gosh I’m out of it because this is where I got a talent or if this was a skill to build definitely but suit you so you started this season you did like the day chips like the river trips of the normal the Rogue River and then out second-year eyes when you moved into the wild and scenic section it was at that first year uh you know that first year I kind of got some got some training experience down there they wanted me to come down and learn and it was really nice I I was fortunate enough to really learn from some great oarsmen but yeah so I got down there wasn’t really working down there but I was experiencing it kind of getting a vibe for what it was like and just kind of getting you know cutting my teeth down there so it was good learned a lot but you know even though you learn a lot now and really prepare you for for working down there full time and that was my second season when when I was asked to come down and do that full time and that was that was crazy man yeah I were him I had a question about that like I wanted to know about one of those first experiences of like because there’s a couple of in the Downriver section on the Rogue River there’s the wild and scenic section of the river to catch people up and that’s how long is that is that like 42 miles 35 roughly roughly River miles always vary from shit the BLM marked trail miles but yeah it read in that ballpark okay yeah something like that so there’s this the Wild and Scenic section where there’s really no development or no modern development and there’s a limited amount of rafts that go down through the section each day right yeah absolutely there’s a permit system through the BLM Bureau of Land Management and essentially what they do is they allow 120 people down per day I know that sounds like a lot but in reality I mean it’s really sparse you really don’t know very many people it can be as many votes as you like I mean it could be a hundred and twenty votes right okay but yeah but there’s a limit of 120 people John and typically you’re running two to three if you’re a private boat or provoke us as a guide company we’re running you know six people for both so right okay the kind of come consolidate a little bit yeah I don’t have that works well so I know that there’s like a couple of those features on that lower rogue section that are like pretty heavy like blossom bar and I wanted you to remember you told me a story about that i think was it like perfect i’m where that where you were you were like learning how to navigate blossom and like yeah i guess for background like what how dangerous or like what is blah as a feature in there blossom is this is this rapid that used to be a full day portage around it commercial cheers have been running down there since the early 20s in back then they used to you know camp just above it take a full data portage and that was it and the 40 is this guy Glen wooldridge who is really the Rogue River pioneer you know I mean that really just you know commercialize this river and just did so much down there well he ended up dynamiting it out you know three separate attempts he blasted massive channel in this thing why Satan it’s not massive at all actually it’s just it’s a technical tiny channel but anyway he does it in the way that the flood water will send debris off to the side keep the channel that he blasted clear and allowing a tricky maneuver through it we are totally doable it’s entirely dependent on having that move correct right it’s it’s a move that it’s not that hard we always say it’s a class to move with uh with classified consequences yeah the first thing I thought I because that I hadn’t really got to raft the lower rogue section that many times so the first time I saw it I think was years ago and then a second time when you and I did that backpacking trip down the lower rogue trail so my first exposure to blossom bar was only ever seeing it kind of from up above I remember the first ever the first time was like what 2010 something like that I was on that backpacking trip in September with Jeremy we got down the block sand bar we waited maybe five minutes it was cake and we saw this pontoon come through and he’s like yeah man watch this it’s going to be like pretty gnarly because this is one of those scariest rapids that are out there and we saw this pontoon guy come up and he just like slipped it perfectly just went right in and out and it was nothing and I was like else that’s that looks easy like from up here 480 feet away so everybody say this is going to be like a giant terrible trauma to try and float through and then you don’t really realize until like when you and I did the trip later I think what to play two years ago a year ago now yeah yeah you’re an ass ago and I’m looking at a picture right now from of a kayaker coming in right in the pocket of that spot in blossom behind i remember now being there with you how what was it an 18-foot raft that was just edge to edge against the rock that you had to kind of here all right swing it right in between yeah so it’s a tight boat for anything I mean well wouldn’t you were there that kayaker got this is pretty serious man that was scary to what I was a hairy situation yeah that definitely kind of solidified again that it’s a pretty big dealer it’s like a a dangerous spot yeah it’s you know it’s one of those Rapids you know an expense from a lot of people are that bit of you know rapid big class 5 water they kind of look at it with this like you know oh that’s your big scary rapid approach and it’s not a big deal you know it’s not a big deal until you mess it up and then when you mess it up you you learn how quickly it changes the game and I mean what a humbling experience to go from like oh yeah it’s nothing and then you find yourself in very serious trouble very quickly so tell me about that Robert so when was it that you first you first navigated blossom as a guide your rather I just said voting yourself so yeah I guess that was 1 2014 yes I’m sorry ah yeah so I get out there you know I’ve been running for all of two weeks I kind of got this job just kind of saying yeah I know what I’m doing and on the on the premise that I would just be able to figure it out in a short amount of time so anyway I get down there I’m shadowing a great ortmann that I was stoked to learn from yeah and so he’s taking me down you know kind of giving me the overview of all these Rapids before we get there yeah and just to mention quickly I mean it’s not like the first thing on the rivers blossom there’s a lot of things to get through the said I wouldn’t want to do for my first time oh yeah and so that was that was the cool thing is a you know I had this awesome day running with him I can you know you can see him up about 60 yards up in the distance and your kind of watching what using a mimic unit and you know the first day was great man I it gave me a really false sense of confidence I can’t do that per se just feel like man I’m I’m pretty good you know so so day two you know we make it to mule Creek Canyon which is a really tight testing area we get through there when we get down into blossom and he’s like yeah this is the one man you know good luck to you in the unfortunate part of about that is you can’t really see what the oarsmen in front of you is doing oh really when they go tonight you have to cut it you have to Eddie out above it I remember the perspective they kind of drop away what are you guys yeah gone yeah it’s it’s really it’s just like they drop off and kind of disappear and you just kind of have to I mean you count the 10 and hopefully you see them you know kind of a peek out from behind the rocks so finally you know I count to 10 he comes through and I go okay you know and I guess I just had a terrible interpretation of what I was supposed to do there and I made the mistake that I’ve seen a lot of people make since then standing up on the bank and watching other boaters oh yeah and uh you know it’s a really big it’s a heavy pull move in there you’re pulling you need all that strength there’s you’re working against the current in there right I remember and remember you prepping us for it I like when we get it yeah oh we gotta pull back pull back yeah yeah yeah so you know it you’re trying to catch us Eddie to slow you down because you’ve got a lot of momentum going through there you know I was I was taught to push push on the oars rather than pool so I come in trying to push it obviously not strong enough um I missed that major that major move just the you know that pivotal move coming in there i miss it i get slammed up against what’s called the rap rock on the picket fence and for anybody listening the picket fence is a series of rocks because of the dynamiting that kind of sit up almost like fingers out of the water with just about enough space for a person to get wedged in there just right in tune stuck in yeah a lot of SIDS in there and just a place you absolutely don’t want to be a movie right you know long story short I get that I get pushed up against there the boat is you know listing I’m trying to throw I’m trying to get it around get my channel 4 and a just an idea of how strong water is you know I’ve I’m not a big guy but I’m throwing all my weight onto these oars and just doing everything I can I’ve got adrenaline going everything and I mean the current just grabs Azure and just shoots it in the air like 10 feet like a rocket I don’t even know how it happened but it just launches it at this moment I go oh no dad I need that one yeah it’s amazing how like you know time slows down in those scenarios but it grabs it grabs my upstream tube it sucks it under the boat starts to flip I don’t know how this ended up happening i ended up scrambling up over the raft as it’s flipping and I land on to this rock called the rap rock my boat flips it goes down in the channel and I watch it go right by a lack of experience made me think I would be safer not jumping on the boat in retrospect I don’t know why I didn’t jump back on the boat that’s amore you know yeah I think things you learn SAA well mr. yeah yeah and so I end up on this rock you know and to give you an idea of the size of the rock it’s about two and a half feet by two and a half feet and I’m standing out there you know on this rock in the picket fence the most dangerous part of boston bar and no way out yeah well i’m not going to jump in the water here yeah absolutely you know a bittersweet situation came up I mean it was fortunate for me unfortunate for the other boaters but some private boaters had come down and they had wrapped their boat far elastic defense and really i mean i i’m fairly certain they lost that boat entirely oh god but fortunately there was a guy on the bank with a throw rope he was able to throw a rope out to me and pull me back across to safety but I mean the whole thing from start to finish ended up taking about hour and a half really uh uh yeah who’s not long of a time that you were like figure out they’re just stuck well yeah you know you’re out there and first off they’re dealing with their situation which is pretty high stress situation yeah but then he comes out to me it’s a it’s a forest row it’s you know you got to be careful you’re not slipping or something yeah you know but it took like 20 throws to get me the rope and then each time you got to bring the Rope back in coil it back up get it flake back out and then try it again and okay yeah it was a an experience oh my gosh yeah i’m looking at the picture of the zone where would it happened right now and i’m just kind of spotting like the picket fence the rock where the people were to the left of the river that sounds like a crazy time though but so if love so your raft went down river or like was it did it deflate no I got so lucky oh my gosh everything back the oars ended back with it you know the only thing I lost was my cot which I was getting a lot of a lot of flack for anyway just because it was a super heavy cumbersome cot need to get rid of that you’re really i think its back here yeah that’s the river time yeah man that’s enough Norina that’s a crazy thing have you ever like how many other clothes cause did like your team have that season or like or since then or is that is a kind of often that you guys aren’t into that um you know I didn’t think it was a very very frequent thing until you go down and you watch people that aren’t down there every day right and you can stand there for an hour and if there’s boats coming through you know I would say one in ten both has a run the way it’s supposed to go through oh my god i would say ninety percent of the boats that go through they either get really lucky and the river smiles on that day and they get to move on yeah or they end up in trouble and flip a boat or rip a floor out or something i watch the guy rap is kayak man i was thinking about it though in like 2012 and you probably know these guys back in i think it was 2012 and marina and i were camping down there for two days that was like the beginning of october the fishing season has started I’m abandoned out there with a camera watching this like beautiful like hardwood polished terrific I just cruise right through there like it’s like it’s just nothing like you just yeah bus or something like it’s easy about yeah you just like see that guy float right through and like pull out to the side in the right spot and you just think well how does that guy do that with such like a fragile machine you know the drift boats are really such an art and I’ve been fortunate enough I got to run a season down there with it with mine this year no it’s a boy you really increase the stress by you know tenfold you don’t have the luxury of bouncing like you do with a rubber raft right em so I mean any mistake is really a potential boat sinking experience so it’s you know by the time you’re rowing a drift boat down there you really understand what you’re doing and where these channels are and the other neat thing about it your code is the way to design is there like a Ferrari not I’m not downplaying the difficulty of what’s going on and then yeah you know they’re easier to maneuver but the stakes are higher and so it’s just important that you make those moves like that and it’s it’s an art to watch your photos go down there it’s absolutely beautiful yeah I seems seems amazing like how they just able to hit that line so perfectly just move right yeah it’s really cool but yeah that’s pretty nuts time though that sounds like a crazy first time and then what sense then how many times you’ve done a lot of rope after that oh man I wouldn’t arrest member like yeah I was trying to figure that out i would say 70 times maybe Wow several rounds of the river just even like so like that’s just a couple years to that’s probably a ton of experience it is I mean it’s still there’s still so much to learn every time you go down you learn something new or some some scenario that you never planned for or even thought about happens you know just the most obscure thing and you go wow okay I’ve learned something from that you know it’s pretty cool man I’m really glad you finished up this season and they that you got that drift boat to and a trailer I did ya checked in here got into the fishing gig you know Rowan down there some really great older than and I mean really getting that drift boat experience down there yeah yeah nerve-racking but so rewarding yeah it sounds really cool we got to find a mellow spawn of water that you and I can go out on some time on your trip though I wanna check it out yeah I want to take you guys out I’d like to do some fly-fishing I mean you know that’s what I want to do though Oh have you get together out there and actually give you guys a fishing trip man I’ll be so fun I’d love to do so you know yeah yeah those trips are expensive so I mean I got to capitalize on those gotta capitalize unknown a good god man that’s gonna be great yeah you set up man you got all the gear so it’s going to be cool look forward to a there yeah right after your honeymoon this summer you can just you can just put us on a fishing trip I think it’s a good idea that sounds great to me the fall time that’s where it’s at well you know the honeymoons gonna happen and then I’m just not going to want to work at all i’m going to be out of it you know it’s gonna be like I want to go back to work we should just go fishing so that’s a great man i’ll be in are you gonna great i’ll be acclimated to time off as much as i can monopolize your time that’d be great man man i think it’d be fun but yeah we gotta playing some good camping trips this summer and I want to get you back back east in like Eastern Oregon or you know some some other River I don’t how we do it but we should just get out get out and go camping somewhere else you know I’d like to get the raft and get out there on like the Hawaii or John day or something like that be cool I know I don’t know anything about him I don’t know what a ratchet was like out there but it just seems cool till I go out to a different spot Scott so maybe we’ve camped before so you know this we’ve got river access and we just never never gone down a Terry story seems like it yeah there’s a lot of neat rivers other I love that area i mean you know we’ve always gone out there but yeah those rivers are both have known for just being incredibly scenic you know Oh class threw water at best you know not very techincal water just a really like an awesome experience from what I understand my god yes I got to do a little homework on it but well study up and then we gotta plan a trip out to summer now let’s go blind well the shit will just jump in get supplies it’s a river cut having a good time man well thanks Robert you’re doing a podcast you really appreciate it hanging out for if yes talking about that back story that’s that’s a amazing story it’s just like a crazy time ok guys you pulled it off maybe yeah I think it work everybody no man it’s really cool well yeah I really want to get you back on and i want to set up a few more of these to do to do some shows like this where we get to talk about some of the outdoor stuff that they’ve done even just that man like going through a cool story that you had of like some kind of tense situation i think that’s going to be really fun well yeah and you know i mean the cool thing is we’ve done enough of these uh these things together that i don’t think we have any shortage of stories to share i was thinking the same thing about it having it be cool alright i’m looking forward to it yeah Thank You Man I’m gonna let you go and I wanted to say thank you very much Robert and thanks for i guess anybody that ends up listen to this podcast on behalf of robert booster at my name is Billy Newman and thank you very much for listening to this podcast