i had two bad days and one bad 1/2 hour on the chattooga. one damn near killed me, and the other two scared the be-jesus out of me. they were all pretty early in my boating career, but taught me a ton of respect for the power of water and the intersection of that and my abilities. i would draw the line at things like gorilla and sunshine on the green and wouldn't run creeks like the bear or the upper blackwater.
A friend and I decided to run Town Creek, when we found it was in flood. It was running 2.5K, so Ocoee volume squeezed down into a creek bed. The water was way up in the trees. We had a friend, a C-1 boater, call up from Birmingham and request to go. He was pretty competent, so we let him come. Of course, it was a different river. At the "blockage," normally the lunch spot, there was no blockage. The water was pouring over the huge boulders and forming an enormous hole below. We had lunch, staring at it and portaged it. Right below, I got caught in a roller which spanned the river and almost got railroaded backwards into the trees. Shaken up, just below there, where the river divides around an island, I took the right, normally just a dead end slough, to catch my breath and think. Of course, at that level, it was no longer a dead end. The river was flowing heavily around the right side of the island as well. To my shock and surprise, the C-1 boater followed me in. I just about lost it with him. I told him he'd never dig out of there with one blade. Any rescue at that level would have put both our lives in danger. He said he thought he could and, by golly, he did, against the main flow of the river. However, the rest of the way down, I boated sweep. I didn't let him get behind me again...
c-1 ers seem to be a bit of a different breed, especially the racers. they sort of remind me of tele-skiers.
Interesting enough I think that's climber Steph Daivs in the pic with him. She's had 2 people she's been married to die base jumping. She's a base jumper herself. Wonder if she is rethinking things a bit?I read somewhere that their chutes didn't deploy properly.
I admire the guy for doing what he wanted. It made him happy.
At least his Blue Heeler "Whisper" didn't go down with the ship!
Yeah, it's almost like they enjoy having the extra handicap. At that level, the water was coming at us so hard and fast, I just didn't see how he could dig out of their with one blade, even with the extra leverage of being up on his knees. As I said, I just wanted to take a break, it was so intense. I was still shaken at having almost being surfed over into the trees, which would have meant a wrapped boat and almost certain death. I was just happy I hadn't capsized and gotten surfed over under water. That happened to me in the Grand Canyon - and remember I'm an old man, if I've spun the tale before. At the bottom of Lava Falls, there's a huge black rock which is the remnant of a volcanic eruption many thousands of years ago which formed a temporary dam across the river. Practically all of the river hits that rock, building a huge cushion, and then turns left around it. About a third of the way down the rapid, there is a breaking wave against an underwater ledge. It breaks unpredictably and, if you're in the wrong spot at the wrong time, you're going over, which is what happened. I was fairly close to the middle of the river and I decided to just ride it out upside down, because the cushion would automatically take me around the rock. About that time, my helmet hit a rock and I realized that I was dangerously close to the shore and rolled up immediately. I was staring right at the rock. (It's really about the size of a VW bug.) At that point, luck, or, perhaps divine intervention, came to my rescue. The river was running about double normal release, probably about 25K fps and the extra volume had opened up a chute to the right of the boulder about 3' wide. I was lined up for it, so I didn't even try to get back over to the left. I had to swing my paddle around and line it up with my boat to get through, just like the middle crack at Crack in the Rock on the Chatooga. The raft guides told me how lucky I was, because that chute wasn't there at normal levels. I would have just crashed into the rock and probably drowned. All of my friends were running down the bank to reach me, but there would have been nothing they could do...
You learn to rationalize it, but it gets harder to do that, the older you get. With me, it lasted to about 50 or so...
These guys were awfully good at doing this. I tend to think that they got a sudden downdraft or something similar...
I'm wondering how much of a factor visibility was? They were jumping at dusk to dodge park rangers...... Wonder if they would be alive if they could have jumped legally in the middle of the day?
