Niagara Story completed

Nick Troutman is filming his new video with Joel Kowalski, called "Here and Now". He called me to see if I wanted to come up from Tennessee to run the Niagara Gorge. I hadn’t even seen video of it yet, but knew it was huge water, and also knew that it was not a legal run. A bad test run in a raft in the 70’s, where a bunch of the raft guides drowned after flipping put the authorities on the hunt to stop all running of the gorge after that. I was not familiar with the area, or the rules, exactly, but luckily we hooked up with a local guy who had actually ran the gorge in the 90’s, once, and knows the deal. There are many laws to deal with first, like violation of closure, potential border jumping if you didn’t put in and take out on the same side (there are cameras and motion detectors in the gorge!). There are about 5 armed police units, including the US Coast Guard, and a strict Canadian Parks Police, etc.. Nobody had any interest in spending any time in jail, or getting a fine, which I heard was over $1,000 US. . Our interest was in the 3 miles of whitewater from the base of Niagara Falls to below Devil’s Hole. The first mile drops nearly 100 feet and is super narrow, creating an explosion of compression waves, crazy boils, folds, whirlpools, and water flowing over 30 miles per hour. This rapid would be the longest, biggest rapid I have run of its type. The water is faster, the volume is bigger, and the rapid just keeps on going without stopping, ending in the Whirlpools, which is a scary place. The logistics are being left out in this newsletter, because we claim 100% responsibility for getting ourselves in and out of the gorge in one piece and without getting in trouble. I don’t recommend that anyone plan on running the gorge without being a top paddler, with the best equipment available, and zero chance of swimming. I can hold my breath for 2 minutes underwater and wouldn’t want to swim there, because that might not be long enough. A helicopter swept down to make sure we were OK and this shot was taken with it in the foreground from someone on shore at the rim of the gorge on the American side. Whirlpool Jet runs tours up to Whirlpool Eddy and they were a welcome site when we got through that rapid, knowing that they could help us if we needed help (swimmer, etc.), but we didn’t need any help on the water so they just all waved at us and gave us the thumbs up, knowing what we just did. That is all I will say about that.

We hiked our Funs into the woods the night before, and hid them, knowing that we wouldn’t be able to successfully walk around in public during the day with the kayaks and not get noticed. Not to mention that the border guards were literally 50 yards away and in full site of our drop off point. In the morning we managed to get into the gorge below the fall under tree cover without getting noticed and get out boats to the river’s edge. The warm up consisted of some push ups, arm swings, and a few quick stretches. We couldn’t get our boats into the water without leaving the tree cover to warm up. The lead in was 30 seconds of 15 mile per hour flatwater looking onto a massive horizon line with two monster crashing waves exploding behind it. When I peeled out first, exactly on the prescribed time, I did some reflecting on just where I was and what was about to happen, all while lining up the horizon line based on where the explosions behind it were coming from. A few backsweeps to complete my warmup, a quick roll, and my calling card of a big yelp and a peace sign and it was game on! All scouting was done so far away that the waves just kept growing bigger and bigger before hitting them, far surpassing the expectation. The first "curler" that I was going to punch, was triple overhead and I quickly adjusted to just staying in the meat in the middle. I had original plans for skirting the first of the Himalayas to the left side of the peak, etc., but the water was too fast and the waves too big and too many of them to try major maneuvering on my first run with below par scouting. The first flurry of crashing waves was an incredible rush of adrenaline, with water over my head, my boat going in every direction as I attempted to maintain control, and the mountains of waves hiding the shoreline so I couldn’t tell where I was, exactly. The Fun was the perfect choice for this run since I had the speed, stability, control, but also had the ability to squirt it around and turn on a dime. The "big" boats would get swallowed up and tossed and thrown vertically anyhow, but with less chance of bringing them down in control. I came out right in the middle of the blue tongue that lead into the Himalayas and got a moment to look at the boardwalk, give them the peace sign, and know where I was again. (this isn’t showing off, but a way to gain broad, external focus, and eliminate useless self talk) The first of the Himalayas is an exploding wave that has a crazy fold on the back side of it that will swallow you up if it opens on you when you are there. I came up the first wave (it is about three strokes up) and braced myself, prepared to spend time underwater, but got the free and clear line. The rest of the Himalayas was a roller coaster/demolition derby in a kayak, one of the most fun pieces of water I have ever been on! I was supposed to eddy out before the Whirlpool Rapid and it was hard to know where the one started and the other ended! Luckly I drove into the eddy early enough to avoid going down the next rapid by myself. Nick and Joel came down in 3 minute intervals and both looked about as jazzed up as an 18 year old can look! We spent the next couple of minutes re-collecting, but still needed to bust a move out of there, since we were in clear view of the Cable car that goes over the gorge (somebody already sent me a photo from it!) The peel out took a minute to get past the eddy line and back in the main flow of huge waves leading into one of the scariest rapids, whirlpool rapid. The left side of the main flow creates some of the nastiest looking pieces of big water ever. Also, getting on that eddyline doesn’t mean you can get off of it easily (this is where most people drowned that have done the gorge) Also, if you get in the river left eddy, you can’t get out without going to shore, which means crossing into Canada and breaking a big law! We all successfully stayed on the right of center and made it through the rapid and eddy out the bottom (a big task), and then we were home free (in terms of whitewater). This is where we bolted to a cave for cover. A cave gave us cover after the run so we could let the storm blow over before paddling out past the major hydro dams, in full view of security cameras, etc. We got into legal waters again, took out, and reflected on a day to remember forever.

Awesome!

🙂

EJ

Joel, EJ, Nick post gorge Sep 5, 2007