A while back Ryan had told me of a big water 30 foot falls in the Cispus area. I was really intrigued with this and was excited to go over and check it out. One thing leading to another we never made it over to the falls until the weekend of August 13th. Jesse Becker, Ryan and I headed over to check out the drop, with little effort we found it. We stood at the falls for quite some time, looking at the lines, consequences and possibilities. The thing that made me the most nervous was the cave on river left, I could tell it was big but I couldn’t tell where it went to. Now I have to admit, caves make me a little more nervous since my Mosier Creek incident and I’m now looking at them much closer.
After throwing fifteen or so logs over the falls it seemed that about seventy percent of them went in the cave. On top of that everyone that went left went into the cave. I could see my line off the right side of the drop, but the lead in was tricky. With lack of safety we left the drop and had plans on coming back the next weekend.
After a week of thinking about the drop, I felt I was ready. We headed back to check it out with several more people so we could have good safety set up. Ryan and I decided to head to the river left side, walk down and take a look into the cave that our logs were so fond of. This had to be about the biggest cave I had ever seen, if you could stand on top of the water you could probably stand up inside it, plus you could see about fifty feet back into it where at high water it made a log jam in the back. After seeing the cave up close and having Ryan there for safety we decided to throw a couple more logs off of it. Almost the same results as last time, seventy percent of the logs went into the cave, the only difference was every log that went right ended up in the cave and every log that went left missed the cave. This really threw us off, the water flow was maybe a hair lower, but not enough to change the results that much.
After throwing the logs over I decided to look at the lead in a little closer, the rapid seemed to low to run, and make the line I wanted. My goal was to come to the lip of the drop with left to right momentum and take a left stroke to get up on the curler at the lip and fall off the right side, without landing flat. After much deliberation I decided to do it. I decided to have Jesse seal launch me off a rock right above the falls. We now had safety set up and were ready to go. Jesse started to slowly slide me in until he couldn’t reach and farther, I had him release me and I took two strokes to the lip of the falls. On my third stroke I took a fairly hard left to get up on the curler and once I did I knew I was on line, after I finished my stroke I could see my landing pad and put my paddle against my body so not to take it to the face. I hit the water nice and soft, about a sixty degree angle and I resurfaced really quick.
It was unbelievable, it was over way to fast. I looked back at the drop and was debating whether to go again or not. In the end I decided that with such a perfect line why take the chances. It was a really good time and it’s always fun running something new. We still aren’t sure if this drop has been run previously or not, so if anyone has any information on it please let us know.
Take Care and keep boating, ~Nate~