Running Cane Creek Falls

On monday we got close to an inch of rain, so tuesday i woke up and drove to Cane Creek falls. I met Issac Levinson and Steve Fisher there. This is a drop both issac and myself have wanted for a long time. Its just hard to get it at a good level. When we got there we took a look and it was clearly on the low side. We were calling it the bare minimum. The drop had been run 3 times before, pat keller got the first decent. Then pat and hunt jennings went back again last year and ran it side by side on opposite sides of the drop. So only 2 people had been on this awesome drop, and being around 70′ with a tricky lip its an interesting drop for sure. After scouting it for a while we knew it went, on the low side, but still doable. So we got steve set up with his cameras on the river left at this overlook. Issac and i got ready in my sprinter and then got down into the river, once we were at the lip we got out and took a look to double check on the line. Whats so hard about this drop at this level anyways was that its not just a perfect rolling lip. Its a two step stairstep lip, and the second step causes the water to spout out fast. And whenever your bow goes up before going down at a lip its much harder to set your angle since there is so much rotation. With a lip like that you usually take too big of a stroke and boof it, or dont do enough and go past vert. We decided it looked good and wanted to go for it. We did rock paper scissors to see who went first, after a few rounds issac won and he was going first. I knew i wanted to go first but i was still good with issac going first so i could see what the lip was like. Since we were running it less than half the flow at least. It was pretty much its own drop at that level, whatever beta pat could have given us about doing this drop, would only have factored into the high water level he ran it at. The level we had was a completely different lip and line. But we saw where we wanted to go and issac went first. He came in a little faster than i did and when he went off it looked good, but he did a little too much all at once which caused him to go a little past vert and twisted a little bit. From the top he looked pretty vertical to me, but on the radio steve said he went past vert. But he stayed in his boat and hand rolled up at the bottom. He says he took a good hit but other than that he was stoked. After looking at the footage he really wasnt that past vert, but his bow was slightly left and so when his bow hit, the rest of the boat came over him. Kind of whiplashing him at the bottom. Knowing that he went past vert was a little unsettling for me because having the thought that you can go past vert easily is hard coming into a lip. Because that usually causes you to take to big of a stroke to try to keep your self from going past vert, but then usually turns into a boof. The size of this drop and the little aeration at the bottom makes it one drop that you absolutely cannot boof. So i got in my boat and warmed up a little bit, i decided to take a different entrance to the drop. Issac came in the middle with all the flow which caused him to have more speed than you would want. So i decided to go about 4 feet farther left at the top and slide over this small pourover into some slow water. I went out the back of the eddy back into the main flow and just floated to the lip. As i went over the spout i held a little stroke to set my angle. As i started going over i felt like i was going a bit past vert so i reset another half stroke to keep my boat vertical and then i tucked up. Stayed tucked till impact and rolled up at the bottom. Surprisingly even with that height and such little water, the hit i had was softer than most drops i have run. I was expecting just a huge hit, and when i landed i went in almost gracefully. Rolled up at the bottom, and i was so fired up to have done it and to have done it so smoothly. It went exactly like i could have hoped for and im stoked to finally get that amazing drop. Im sure this wont be the last time i run that drop. But i think ill let that first time sink in before going back. Still lots of other drops to get. On that same day we went caving in lost creek cave which was awesome, then came back to rock island and did some boating on the falls and sieve city. It was one of the best days i have had in a long time. So much fun stuff in one day. Now its time to pack up and head to NC for some more creek and training for fast coming season. See you on the river.

D

Jackson Kayak Karma