So, I fly into the Minneapolis airport and depart from Tao as he boards another plane to Duluth. I met up with Eric Link at the airport and picked up my rental
car so we could travel together to Hurley WI. On the way there I couldn't stop talking about the falls and the whole North and South
shore boating. Finally, I've come back to my home area to check out some whitewater, and watch Tao run a drop that's never been run before. Once we reached the
hotel in Hurley we meet up with Tao and the film crew to discuss what's going to happen the next day, it happens to be the scouting day but we still have to wake up at
6:00 am to get camera angles and interviews.
6:00 am came around much faster then I wanted it to, but I got up and ate breakfast with Eric, Tao and Jeb (the host of the show), and off we went to check out the falls.
Once we reached the parking area we went up to check out the drop, yep, It was as big as I remembered. We all stood there for a while discussing the lines,
now if you've ever been to this drop you know why it's so difficult, tons of rooster tails a fold on the left side and a huge hole at the bottom. After a lengthy
discussion of the falls we went back to the camera crew and started to film the show.
Tao, Eric and Jeb were the main people, discussing what Tao was going to do, how he was going to do it and talking about his past track record with big drops
and technical waterfalls. After a couple of hours of filming we went back to the cars, and the producer and the helicopter pilot were talking and things wern't
looking good. The pilot was saying that he couldn't get the chopper in such a tight area above the falls, it just wasn't possible.
What was the chopper for you ask?
Well you can't expect Tao to run an extremely hard drop (first descent) by just putting in the eddy right above it. Oh no, he was going to seal launch out
of the helicopter right above the falls into his line. After all the show was called "Stunt Junkies".
As Tao was trying to talk to the producer and Pilot things just weren't working out, they said it couldn't be done. Basically the pilot said there wasn't enough
room to put the chopper abover the falls and that we needed to find a new drop. Tao looks back at me;
"What else is around here? It looks like we need another drop!"
"Shoot! I need to get to a phone and make some calls, it's going to take a bit of time to figure this out."
he looks back at the pilot and asks to go scout it with him, the pilot just says it isn't possible, there's no way of putting the chopper in that small of an
area without crashing and most likely killing a few people at the same time. "I won't do it"!
After a bit Tao talked the piolet into scouting it with him and seeing if they could figure something out. I had to watch this, if we couldn't do the stunt here
we either had to find another drop in very short notice or find a new drop and do the show in a couple months. These were not appealing options, too much money
was already invested to blow this off. So off we went to the top of the drop, we get to the eddy above the drop and the pilot starts telling us about the problem.
"OK, Lets see whats up stream" Tao says
So we go around the corner to the top of another drop, actually more of a double drop and Tao starts talking to the pilot;
"How about here? Can you get me above this drop"?
"Sure, that souldn't be a problem".
So now were back on schedule the plans a go! As they were discussing the plan I walk down stream to look at the bottom part of the double drop. I come up to
the edge and look down into a sticky ledge hole. So, now each of the drops have extremely sticky holes at the bottom, most people wouldn't have run them much less
the sixty footer below. Tao looks at me and I give him the thumbs up, it's good to go. Once he came around to where I was he looks into the hole and back at me
and says "I thought you said it was good to go?"
"Well, it looks like you can run it, I'm not saying I would!"
With the problems being solved we went to check out the big drop again. Looking at it from several different angles we saw the line he was going to take, it looked
dicey but runnable, he just needed to nail his line. I figured he was the man for the job.
After a few more interviews and camera scouting Tao went up to the helicopter to do a couple fly by's and see where he would be launching from and where he would be
launching into, so I hooked back up with Eric and we went to look at the drop again, this time from another new angle. Eric noticed
something we couldn't see from the other angles, it looked like the whole drop was slightly slanted and would throw him into the river right wall at the very
bottom.
As we were talking the helicopter flew over, so we took off to the launching spot to see what it would be like down there for the cameras. After a couple passes
the chopper came down to the river at launching level. Someone said it would be like a light mist, it felt much more like a hurricane. After watching the chopper
come by several times Eric and I noticed several problems:
The ten foot seal launch out of the chopper looked more like twenty
The chopper was making such a storm that I felt it would screw him up for the first drop
The downdraft created by the rotors.
As soon as Tao got off the chopper we brought these to his attention, his first reaction was that he thought they were higher then ten feet off the water level.
When I notified him about the turbulance from the chopper while going off of the first drop the pilot said they would be out of there right away, as soon as he
hit the water they were going to be gone. But most importantly was the down draft of the rotors, I said he would need a huge shove in order to keep his bow up,
after all the water was only two feet deep where he was launching into and actually a little less with the chopper displacing some of the water. As we were talking
about it he decided to have me shove him out of the chopper, just so there was a little more strength.
At first I was excited but then the more I thought about it, the more nervous I got. After all if I didn't get his bow up and he pitoned he could break an ankle
and would have to run the first two drops injured, then maybe not even be able to run the sixty footer. That's a lot of pressure considering how much time and
money was put into this project.
So just before we were leaving Tao, Eric and I went to check out the falls one last time to look at the line. Once again the falls changed in our eyes and so did
the line, now it looked like just left of center, into a fold coming off the left wall. So we decided to throw some logs, we probably threw five over that line,
every one coming out broken. I bet we threw 10-15 logs over throughout the day and not one stayed whole, I consider that scary, Tao considers that a challenge!
It just came down to what the water level would do by morning;
"Lets just come back in the morning and talk about it with a fresh start tomorrow."
We came back early the next morning, everyone was getting excited, today was gameday! We went up to the falls right away and it looked like the level had risen
just a little, that was definately good. After another long discussion, left of center looked like the way to go. So we head back and I go right up to the
chopper to see what I needed to do, where I was going to stand and so forth. Chris Johannasan was already up there looking at the chopper and at a spot to tie me in.
We talked about it for a bit and I climbed into a harness and she got me set up. Now for leverage, I needed to climb outside the chopper and stand on the skid
with my right foot while my left foot in harnesed into the chopper then I had a hand hold to pull with while I pushed him out. We spent an hour or so getting things
fine tuned, so every thing would be just right, we couldn't afford to make a mistake. We ended up taking all the doors off the chopper to fit the boat
inside, his Nomad 8.1 stuck out on both sides while he was centered, this is how we had to fly. So what I needed to do was have him centered while flying
to the launch spot, push him little by little to the edge of the chopper, get into my push position and go! We did several dry runs and I started to realize
how hard it would be to push two hundred pounds out of the chopper while trying to get him to land flat. After a bit I felt comfortable (as much as I could) and was
ready to go.
As we were loading up Tao looks back at me and asks if my fear of heights will come into play.
"It's too late now, besides I'll have too much other stuff on my mind to be afraid."
The pilot asked if I had been in a chopper before.
"no, why?"
"Well I want you to hold on tight because at take off it gets pretty rocky."
"Don't worry, I'll be holding on!"
We finally take off, man, the pilot was right. I never realized how much wind effected a helicopter, it really throws you around, especially while it's
taking off. So we lift off and go about three hundred feet in the air, looking down up on everything and everyone, it was pretty amazing. But I really couldn't
get over the wind bursts. While we are making the first pass I hear through the headset the two pilots talking and they were discussing how windy it was, so we
just did an overhead pass to feel things out. Then we came around for a second pass, a bit lower to see how the wind effected it where it gorged up, a little bit
bigger bursts then higher up. I keep quiet listening to the piolets and it's sounding like we may not be able to get close enough, it's just too windy. So we go
around one more time and as we were doing that the helicopter does a really sharp bank and then we hit a wind burst and pushes us quite a bit, Tao slowly turns
around and asks;
"You have a good hold on me right?"
"Yep, Don't worry, your not going anywhere."
After all we were about three hundred feet up and he was just sitting in his kayak with the bow sticking out the side of the chopper and he wasn't clipped into anything.
So as were coming for the final pass were just off the river surface, hovering over the pool that he's launching into. Tao keeps talking to the pilot;
"Left"
"down"
"a little more right"
and so on, until he was right above the spot he wanted to be. As he was talking to the piolet I was getting him into position, sliding him little by little so I could
get into my position. When I got him set up I stepped out of the chopper onto the skid and got my feet into position. Finally we are in position and Tao
and the pilot give the ok to each other and Tao looks back at me
"Three"
"Two"
"One"
and I shoved with all my might, launching my body across the chopper so I ended up laying with my chest outside the otherside of the helicopter looking down onto Tao
as he falls.
To check out what happens watch the TV show, it will be on at the end of May, I'll keep you updated when I find out more exact dates. Check out their website at Stuntjunkies.com
Stay safe
~Nate~