Road Trip: Jerry's Rogue Jets and Rogue River

Alright, so the whole road trip to Gold Beach was for one thing (initially), and that's to ride Jerry's Rogue Jets along the Rogue River.

The Rogue River is about 215 miles of water that flows from Crater Lake straight to the Pacific Ocean. We were able to ride on 104 miles of that river. According to Jerry's Rogue Jets, we were the last of the trips that would be able to ride the 104 miles of the river before the water level was too low to take tourist out. 84 miles of the river, as part of our 104 mile trip, is designated as the "National Wild and Scenic" section of the boat trip. You can read more about the river here.

This tree was on our day two trip to California. I found it interesting because of the sign that was below the hill from it. It's the "World's Largest Montery Cypress," but after some research on the tree, it's actually the World's Second Largest. You can read about it here.

On to the jet boats!

Our tickets to ride.

Jerry's Rogue Boats runs two different boat tours. We ended up riding the red boats that took us 104 miles up the Rogue River, but the blue boats are pretty interesting. There is a mail route that is ran along the river, so anyone that lives in the "inhabited" part of the Rogue, gets their mail delivered by mail boat. Pretty cool huh? Jerry's teamed with the Mail Boats and they now operate together. The trip with the Mail Boats is a shorter trip, but the cool thing about it is, you get to ride in the same jet boat as the mail. No joke....you can read more about that here.

Our boat was called Blossom Bar.

Mud nest under the bridge from Swallows.

The Turkey Vultures put on a good show for us. The way the sun was coming over the tree line made them look even more wicked.

A Rogue Indian tepee (or teepee/tipi, depending on where you're fron). This one was actually for sale.

The bridge over the Rogue that allows Lobster Creek to run into the river.

The water level can be seen on the rocks here at Lobster Creek. The river is slowly going lower and lower.

A bald eagle was sitting and watching the fishermen throw their small catches back into the water.

Some turtles hanging out in the moss. These turtles are called "Western Painted Turtles" and are a protected species, so it was cool to see some just hanging out next to the boat.

Rafters were up and down the river all day. J.T. and I have already made a decision that we are going to start floating one of the many rivers around Oregon , maybe even the Rogue, as an annual trip.

According to our driver, this tree was photographed by National Geographic back in the '60s, but I can't seem to find anything on it online, except for this.

We ended up stopping in Agnes for lunch. The lunch was a buffet-style of home cooked food. They had bbq pork sandwiches, fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, and even desserts like apple pie. It was perfect for the day!

Skylar loved the goldfish they had in the fountain at the top of the lodge.

After the lunch in Agnus, we headed back up river to the start. This trip back took about two hours. When we rolled back under the bridge there was a lone sea lion popping his head up and down looking for fish and other "droppings" from the fishermen. He looked at us and then popped under water and we didn't see him pop up again, so I was glad I got a quick shot before he swam away.

Our driver's name was Scotty on the way back, but on the way down the river we had a driver named John. He parted ways with us at Agnus. Both were exceptional at telling us so much about the Rogue River.

Our hotel had signs like this posted throughout the grounds. I loved the way they worded it, so I had to share it.

More about the bridge. This bridge was built in 1930 and opened officially for traffic in 1932. It's official name is the Isaac Lee Patterson Bridge, but to the locals it's known as the Rogue River Bridge.