Midwest Creeking 2007 - Part 2

Day Three

The Black River was on our agenda for Sunday. This River is made up of huge waterfalls and slides, along with some great rapids. The first drop in this run it Potawatami - a long entrance rapid into a 20 foot sliding vertical drop. Kiffy and Taylor fired it up that day, as we took photos from afar. The recommended high level for the Black is said to be about 500 cfs, the Black, this day, was climbing well over 650 cfs. Because of the juicy flows, no one ran “Gorge Falls” - a 20 foot sloping, vertical falls into a “get your ass trashed” hole at the bottom.

After everyone put in below Gorge Falls, we continued downstream. The Black has about 5 significant rapids in the 3 mile run. The next significant rapid was “Sandstone” Falls. It is more of a rapid than a falls, but is pretty intimidating. There weren’t many paddlers that stayed upright in this rapid. Below Sandstone, was Rainbow Falls. Rainbow falls has to be one of the most beautiful waterfalls I have ever seen. Four of us fired up Rainbow that day - being the highest flow that Rainbow has been ran to this day. Nate Herbeck fired it up first, with a beautiful line, followed by Kiffy, myself and Taylor.

Carnage #2
I was feeling pretty good that day on the Black, yet I was still undecisive about running Rainbow Falls. After scouting this drop for a while, I saw my line. There is a fine line for running this waterfall - You miss your line and you die! Since the flow this day was around 650-700 cfs, you can imagine the power of the water. The line was to run it a little left of the farthest left rooster tail, hit a curler wave/hole, holding a brace and continue down the drop. I knew I had my line . . . I got in my boat, and for a split second, I thought, “I still have time to back out of running it. I can just ferry across and look at it longer from the river left side.” But, knowing that I knew my line, I thought that scouting even longer would be my excuse for not running the drop. So, I pulled out into the “current of no return”. I found my markers, had a beautiful line dropping in, and WHAM! The HUGE curler wave flipped me, with about 40 feet of slide/falls to go. As I was falling, I hit my head about ½ way down the drop. I attempted rolling up at the bottom of the falls, but failed. As I was falling 40 feet down the drop, upside down, it felt as if I was in a narrow tunnel. I didn’t really know where I was, I just felt myself totally submerged in the water. It wasn’t until I actually hit the bottom of falls and felt that impact, that I knew the worst was over. Once I got to shore, Nate sprinted to his boat, ferried across and tended to me. “Damn girl, he said. “Look at your helmet!” I took my helmet off and noticed a big crack in it. “Wow, I hit my head harder than I thought.” Needless to say, I was very sore the next couple of days. Once again, I came out very lucky. Thanks to Sweet helmets for such a great, protective product and thanks to the angels that are working so hard to keep me alive on a daily basis, ‘cuz here I am! I took a rock directly to the head, a rock between my right shoulder blade and some impact on my cervical vertebrae - all while I was going full speed down a 40 foot vertical slide. I’d say, I’m pretty lucky.

Day Four

The big weekend group took off, so it was Nate and I once again. We took the day to scout drops, being that I was sore from the day before.

Day Five

We were very happy to have Taylor (aka “Hansel” - you’re so hot right now) back with us to do some boating. Our first endeavor was “Interstate Fall” or “Peterson Falls” some call it. With the water levels rising, now that we were having warmer temps, more runs were coming in. “Interstate Falls” is a 20 foot waterfall, which is shallow in all but a narrow little part. Ideal line is boofing, however I think we all had at least one plug line when we ran laps on this drop. Okay, okay, I think I was the only one with a plug line on one of my laps . . .

After “Interstate” Falls, we went to look at Saxon Falls. Saxon Falls is a three-tiered waterfall drop that had yet to be ran. The first descent took place on April 23rd, 2007 by Tao Berman, Josh Bechtel and Eric Boomer.

We proceeded to the next drop that Nate had scouted the day before, “Powderhorn” Falls. This drop consisted of a tight, manky 4 foot ledge into a 20 foot S-turn like slide. When we arrived that day, we scouted it a little bit more. The only noticeable problem was on the first drop. Even though it was only a 4-foot drop, most of the water was pushing to the right, into a pocket hole with a pin spot. The ideal line was to try to boof out past it and continue downstream.

Carnage always happens when you least expect it. Lesson learned: Always bring your throw rope with you, even if you don’t think you’ll need it! Nate decided to run the drop into the slide first. As he was getting into his boat, Taylor positioned himself directly below the first drop to get a good angle for photos. I positioned myself at the lip of the second drop for good video angle. Nate shouted that he was ready to go. He got his boat in the water, lined himself up and charged down the 4-foot ledge. He underestimated how much the water was pushing right and got the nose of his bow in a pocket pin spot on the right wall, while the back of his boat was pinned on a rock in the middle of the drop. He was going nowhere! He started yelling for a rope . . . “Damnit!” Neither of us had our ropes! We scurried up the ledges we were standing on to grab our ropes. Before I got to the top of the ledge to grab my rope, I looked back one last time to see Nate’s situation. By this time, the water had blown his skirt and he was released from his boat. The last I saw of Nate was that he was out of his boat, getting pulled back in to the corner pocket hole with the pin spot. My heart started pounding. But here comes the scariest part of all. When I got back to the ledge I was originally at, I didn’t see Nate. Here is what I saw: I saw his kayak below the 20 foot slide, upside down, stuck in the rocks below. I saw Nate’s paddle floating downstream over the slide, but I saw no sign of Nate. For those of you who know me, you know that I can handle some scary situations on the river, but this situation made my heart stop for a second. I had no idea where Nate was. I started yelling, and finally Nate yelled back from the eddy upstream that I didn’t have sight of. He had swam out of the hole and into a section of river that I couldn’t see. As tough as I like to be, when I finally met up with Nate at the top of the cliff, I let go of a few tears. Lesson learned: Always bring a rope with you and Always let people know where you are on the river.

Day Six

We then headed to Wren Falls. The photo showed this falls to be a beautiful, sloping drop into a very bad hole. This drop is best described as a low-head dam. Yes, it can be ran. But, if you mess it up, you will get the worst beat-down of your life. We sent many logs down this drop and I have never seen logs get worked so badly. We decided that the fun to beat-down ratio was just not there, so we headed back to the car.

Carnage #4

This is not your regular kayaking beat-down carnage, this has to do with our vehicle. The day happended to be sunny and about 70 degrees, with the snow melting all around us. You can guess, when you mix melting snow with dirt roads, it results in really soft, clay-like mud. Well, Nate thought he had parked in a spot that was firm enough to drive out of, but that ended up not being the case. After fighting what felt like a losing battle with the soft mud, we finally got our vehicle loose. For the last 45 minutes, we had been digging the mud out from underneath our tires and packing rocks in to make a firmer surface. Once the car came free, we celebrated with high-fives and cheers! Thinking we were good to go, Nate backed the car out from the spot we rescued the vehicle from and we got stuck again! What a premature celebration! Once again, we spent about 20 more minutes digging the vehicle out from the claws of the clay mud. Finally, when we got the vehicle out, we humbly drove out, thinking that any celebration would result in yet another catastrophe.

After the debauchel of the stuck vehicle, we went to scout Foster Falls. This falls looked good enough, that we all got our gear on and ferried across the river to look at the drop from the other side. After about 30 minutes of scouting and 25 minutes of “C’mon run it!” , from some local fisherman, we decided to pull the plug on this mission. There was a high risk for a bad piton in this drop and at the water level it was at that day, we didn’t want to take that chance. “We’ve had enough carnage in the last 4 days”, we all thought. “We’ll leave this one for next time.”.

~Heather~