Two Rafters, after running Blossom Bar, beached their boat and hiked part way back up the rapid to eat lunch and watch other boats go through. The Raft floated away while they were eating. Robert had left his PFD in the Raft. The two decided to swim the river and hike the trail on the other side. The man with the PFD made it, Robert did not. There was plenty of trafic on the river that weekend. Robert could have waved down a passing raft for a ride. Reported Tuesday, June 3, 2008 int The San Francisco Chronicle by Demian Bulwa, Chronicle Staff Writer (06-02) 14:56 PDT ROGUE RIVER, ORE. — Authorities in the southwest corner of Oregon said today that they believe a 42-year-old San Jose man drowned while trying to swim across the fast-flowing Rogue River.The victim of the apparent drowning, Robert Scott Blight, was rafting down the river Saturday morning with a friend, 41-year-old Dino James Fry of Hayward, said the Curry County sheriff’s office. While the pair ate lunch on the southern shore of the river, authorities said, their raft drifted away. They couldn’t walk down the river on that side, so they tried to swim across to the north side, where there was a trail. Fry was wearing a life jacket and made it across, the sheriff’s office said, but Blight, who was not wearing a life jacket, drifted downstream. Fry then hurried to a nearby lodge to summon help about 12:15 p.m. A sheriff’s team with a boat responded from Gold Beach, 52 miles to the west, but rescuers could not find Blight. Authorities continued searching the river today with help from private boats and guides from the area’s white-water rafting industry. The Rogue River, which flows from the Cascade Range to the Pacific, is popular among white-water rafters and was a location for filming of the Meryl Streep movie “The River Wild.” The river is flowing faster and colder than usual this year because of increased snow melt in the mountains, the sheriff’s office said. E-mail Demian Bulwa at dbulwa@sfchronicle.com.