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Rookies won't be getting their rafts in Shady Cove By MARK FREEMAN SHADY COVE -- The wide-eyed rookies with little more than sunscreen and swim trunks come to town with an itch to paddle the upper Rogue River, and Devon Stephenson usually obliges. The owner of Rogue Rafting Co. will rent them a raft or inflatable kayak, then let them negotiate the upper Rogue's riffles and pools after a short lesson on how-to's and safety. But the snowmelt-swelled Rogue has Stephenson and other owners of Shady Cove raft-rental businesses so leery that they are not renting to rookies until high-water conditions improve. "If you have any ethics at all, you have to," says Raft the Rogue owner Jack Henson of Shady Cove. On Friday, the river flow was 5,140 cubic feet per second, about 2.5 times higher than it usually is Memorial Day weekend. The high, swift water is safe for semi-skilled rafters, rental operators say, but not first-timers without guides or experienced friends to go with them. Stephenson says that might curb an already slow rental business by 10 percent. "We're just not going to turn the real novices loose out there," says Paul Petersen, owner of Cascade Adventure Center in Shady Cove. The self-imposed safety-first attitude has marine enforcement officers pleased as well. The culprit is a record spring runoff from the Cascades. Concern for flooding has the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers releasing as much water from Lost Creek Lake into the Rogue as is flowing into the lake. On Friday, that meant water releases of 5,140 cubic feet per second compared to a typical 2,000 cfs. Shady Cove rafting companies usually cater to semi-skilled rafters who take a four-hour float from Cole Rivers Hatchery near Lost Creek Lake to Shady Cove. "Typically, anybody who knows how to swim and knows a little bit about water can do it," Stephenson says. That trip is now done in less than two hours, with new obstacles and pitfalls. Rafters typically float with the current and row away from rocks, boulders and brushy banks. "The typical rafting accident is hitting the brush," says marine Deputy Wally Ramsay of the Jackson County Sheriff's Department. "If you don't have the skills for brush-avoidance, there isn't a place on the river that's safe." Petersen stresses that the water is not treacherous. "It's not big and raging water," he says. "It's just big and mellow." But big and mellow means it can be tough to avoid obstacles, Petersen says. He also is stressing that rafters should wear life jackets at all times and refrain from jumping into the water -- a common practice among summer rafters on the upper Rogue. Stephenson says all but the greenest of rafters should be fine on the upper Rogue while the water's high. "If you've done it before, you should be OK," Stephenson says. "But at this water level, you have to be one step beyond novice." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA