Running Big Rivers

The poster hangs on the wall at Marble Canyon Lodge near Lee’s Ferry, and at Ray’s Tavern in Green River, Utah, and in dozens of boathouses scattered riverside throughout the country. You can almost hear the noise - a pulsing, pounding, heart-breaking boom shaking the very walls of the Grand Canyon itself. The photo, taken by Curt Smith in 1983, shows a couple guys in a raft headed straight for the guts of Crystal, with the Colorado flowing at a colossal 93,000 cfs.

It’s a big moment in big water and for some folks this is what running rivers is all about. They hit runoff at its peak, flood stage if possible, when the twin towers of volume and velocity combine to turn an ordinary river trip into a blood-boiling, small-mistake-means-big-consequences experience. It’s a short window of opportunity most years, that uncertain apex when spring hands off to summer, leaving nothing but memories and a high-water mark. But if you time it right, and have the skills to keep from becoming just another piece of flotsam tangled in the trees, a big-water run can be the premier paddle you never thought possible.

One of the most famous high-water runs of all time is undoubtedly that of Olympian Davey Hearn, who paddled the Potomac in 1996 when it was pushing 18 feet on the gauge and carrying somewhere in the neighborhood of 300,000 cfs. Hearn was arrested at the take-out by Park Service police but the judge dismissed the case before a defense even had to be mounted. “It was actually a very safe and prudent thing to do,” Hearn says. “I’d ran it several times at that level. At 7 to 14 feet, there’s a terminal hole that forms behind the Brookmont Dam, but at 18 feet it forms a huge wave that stretches a third of the way across the river. I wanted to be in that particular place at that particular time because I knew the wave would be there.”

Hearn was training for the ‘96 Olympics at the time but he says he’s always enjoyed the challenge presented when rivers run high. “Big water boating is the best kind of paddling there is,” Hearn says. “There’s more power to work with, there’s bigger waves - that’s where you put it all together. It’s the kind of thing that gives you respect for the river. And if you didn’t have it before, you’ll have it afterward.”

Hearn is also a veteran of the daunting Niagara Gorge, which Chris “Spe” Spelius made famous when he notched the first descent of the mile-long torrent in 1976. The run was illegal and Spe’s paddling partner was arrested. But Chris, proving he knows how to pick a good line both on and off the water, escaped the not-quite-long-enough arm of the law. Spelius is one of the more famous big water paddlers the sport has ever produced, being raised in the West before bringing his high water style to bear as an instructor for ten years at the Nantahala Outdoor Center. As owner of Expediciones Chile, Spelius now teaches on Chile’s ample supply of big water, including the famed Rio Futaleafu.

While Spelius and Hearn are two of several kayakers to have run Niagara Gorge, only one canoe has ever made the trip, paddled in 1988 by North Carolina’s Nolan Whitesell. “Eight of us ran it at over 150,000 cfs,” Whitesell says. “We did more scouting of that one rapid than I’ve done in 10 other rapids combined. The lines would change from hour to hour and when you were running it you were blind 80 percent of the time because you spent most of your time in the trough of a big wave.”

Both Whitesell and Hearn say Niagara Gorge was running at a breakneck 25-30 mph and that the safety considerations of paddling that type of water can’t be overstated. “The big danger is that it’s basically every man for himself,” Whitesell says. “There is a limitation to what any safety boater can do under those circumstances. You can be a quarter of a mile behind someone just by missing an eddy turn. And throw ropes become a joke - it’s got to be a boat-to-boat rescue.” Despite the danger, Whitesell says he loves big water paddling far more than some of the other “emerging trends” he sees in the sport. “Sliding down wet rocks has never been my cup of tea,” he says.

Meanwhile, Out West…

On the other side of the country, paddlers enjoying the El Niöo-fed waters of the late ’90s saw river levels in California, the Pacific Northwest and the Rockies all reach near-record highs. Billy “Mad Dog ” Danford lives in Driggs, Idaho, and reaped much of the benefits of peak season. “I work as a fishing guide later in the summer so runoff is really the only time I get to paddle,” he says. “But that’s probably the only time I’d be out there anyway.”

Danford and a few local hardcores hit paddling paydirt when they were allowed to run the Milner Mile on the Snake during a government whitewater study of the section in 1995. “It was a mile of total chaos,” he says. “That and the Murtaugh section are the biggest volume whitewater runs in southeast Idaho.” But the following year was the “year to remember” in Idaho. Danford hit the North Fork of the Payette at seven feet and was on the Selway when it peaked at eight feet - when they were using helicopters to escort commercial trips off the river. He’s also run the headwaters of the White Nile in Uganda.

“I’m just not as confident or comfortable on skinny water,” Danford says. “On steep creeks you might get pinned vertically but in big water you’ll almost always get flushed through. Show a little blade and you’ll find at least some water going up. The only down side is if you fall out of your boat you might not make it to shore.” Not that Danford hasn’t had his close calls. He remembers one trip on the Teton where he went to roll and his torso got stuck under a log floating along with him. He was forced to come out of his boat and was swept underneath two log jams. “It’s like riding a liquid avalanche,” Danford says. “You don’t know what’s going to happen. It’s all reactive.”

As well as a handful of hairball runs occuring on the North Fork of the Payette (see page 81), 1996 was also the year that Dan Gavere and Corran Addison - while filming Paddle Frenzy - tackled the Golden Gate section of Idaho’s Clearwater, a run both say was the hardest they’d done to that point. “I rolled in Coyote Falls and I thought I was going to get my head ripped off,” Gavere says. “There were huge, continuous holes but luckily it was moving so fast that you’d basically get pushed right through.”

Idaho rivers weren’t the only western waterways to explode during the 1996-97 record-setting years. California and Oregon rivers spilled over their banks, and more than a few paddlers were there for the ride. Portland’s Scott Andler recalls making a couple runs down Oregon’s lumber-choked coastal streams. “I remember being 20-30 feet into the trees on some runs,” he says. “The water isn’t that hard; it’s the shore that’s dangerous.”

And in California, 18-year Bureau of Reclamation veteran Jim Eicher was making one of the more than 300 rafting trips he’s made down the Merced River throughout his career. “We were almost above the highway at the tops of the waves,” he says. The 25-mile trip took less than an hour and in January the river reached 91,500 cfs, forcing the closure of Yosemite National Park.

One of the inherent dangers of paddling really big water is the risk of “flush drownings,” in which a person - even fully outfitted - may drown not as a result of getting pinned but simply by taking a long swim in a relentless river.

“Big water is exciting but if the rapids are continuous, a swim can be unbelievably nasty,” says safety expert Charlie Walbridge. “People may get carried for miles, pummeled by holes, and sucked deep into eddylines and vortexes. Paddlers sometimes drown despite the use of a life vest. A strong roll is essential.” In imagining a Potomac swim at the level he ran it, Hearn says, “The stuff is so huge it’d be breaking over your head the whole time. Even if you had a big life jacket, you’d still be just a speck on the water.”

Big and Remote

Running huge water is dangerous enough when it’s out your back door. But throw in the added element of remoteness and the task becomes even more sketchy. Charlie Munsey was messing around at rodeos in the late ’80s but now focuses almost entirely on big water in big places. “I used playboating to hone my skills so I was comfortable in the big holes,” says Munsey, who’s made several big-water pilgrimages to Asia and South America. “I liked playing, but immersing yourself in a totally committing situation and coming out at the bottom is the highest satisfaction for me.”

Munsey, along with fellow big-water boater and filmmaker Scott Lindgren, say that although the majority of new boats coming out keep getting smaller to appeal to the freestyle crowd, they like the large volume of expedition kayaks. “It’s funny to see all the changes going on in other parts of the sport because big water boating really hasn’t changed much,” Munsey says. “And I don’t think the number of people doing it has gone up much either.” Lindgren agrees. “There will always be a limited number of expedition and big water boaters,” he says. “If you took a look at a big volume river vs. small and measured a person’s blood pressure on each, you’d probably find out why.”

Anyone who has seen recent video footage from Africa may disagree with Munsey’s claim that big water boating hasn’t changed much. People like Alex Nicks can be seen throwing wave wheels off of some of the burliest, high volume water on the planet. And they’re doing it in playboats. “Big water sorts the men from the boys,” Nicks says. “And it doesn’t suffer fools.” But even Nicks has experienced close calls. “I once nearly drowned when my spray skirt burst and left me with one of my worst swims ever. Since then I’ve used a sprayskirt with an implosion bar to support my deck.”

Nicks compares the Zambezi to rivers like the Reventazon and the Futaleufu because they offer “endless playwaves and huge holes in a relatively safe and pleasant environment.” Relatively safe and pleasant? “Well,” he continues, “like most big water you can always find more gnarl if that’s your bag. Ultimately it’s just another example of what our sport is about - variety.”

Spring is coming. And with it comes high water and high hopes. What’s to love about big water? This: The feeling of camping above a huge rapid with the roar of tomorrow in your ear; the slick, inviting deceit of a tongue leading to turmoil; the sight and sound of a powerful wave breaking unto itself; the process of grabbing that last eddy, waiting for your friends to follow; the act of scouting for hours knowing you’ll head straight down the tongue anyway; the odd, tranquil silence found mid-roll underwater; peeing above a big run; partying below it; and of course, the telling and re-telling of bigÜwater stories, embellished along the way.