(All Photos by Eric Ruhl)
New York is a state that has been good to the Dogg. Through the years, I’ve run countless huge drops (some of them first descents) in this state and I always come back from my trips with tales of adventure and excitement. It definitely delivers the goods when it comes to whitewater and gets two thumbs up from the Dogg! Wait a second! Doggs don’t have thumbs, they have dew claws!
I was stoked when Adam Rettig and I planned a trip to the Deerfield Festival in Massachusetts. Fluid Kayaks North America (FKNA!) is owned by Priority Worldwide Services and Marc Tohir agreed to let us take the PWS panel van up to the festival. You may think that’s a bad idea driving a gas guzzling van all the way up north. You many think that this trip cost me an arm and a leg! What? Has anyone actually given an arm and a leg in exchange for goods and services??? Appendages don’t count for legal tender where I come from! However, Priority paid for our gas so we were free and clear to go exploring! Thanks Marc! You’re aces in my book! We discussed going over into New York and doing some paddling. I recently purchased a book of waterfalls in New York and I scanned it for runable drops and streams that would have water in the summertime. Before and after the Deerfield, we visited a couple of waterfalls but all were either too low or had major access issues. Finally, I gave up on my quest to find the perfect park n huck falls. I had come all this way to drop a SIK falls and had so far been unsuccessful. I hadn’t felt that bad since the time on a ski lift when I tried to wipe a booger on my brother. When he moved to avoid it, he fell off the lift. The broken bones ended up healing but the mental scars lasted much longer. But I digress. We drove to the Ausable Chasm, a fun Class 3-4 run with spectacular scenery. At the putin, lies the spectacular Rainbow Falls, an unrun 40 foot waterfall into a pool of questionable depth. With the minimal flow of 250 cfs, I thought that the flow would be potentially scrapy for the run, much less the falls. However, upon seeing the falls and its spout line down the far left, I exclaimed, “That drop is runable and today is the day that it gets run!” I should be ashamed of myself, I stopped believing for a short period of time. Boy is Journey going to be pissed when they find out! I started to feel much better about the day and a feeling of excitement and an anticipation was coming over me. Like Little Debbie, I unwrapped a smile when I saw that falls! What? Who says stuff like that!?!? FKNA!
We set shuttle for our first run and puton at the usual boater putin that AW set up years ago. We paddled up near the landing of the falls. It sure looked big from below and the water was thundering down and exploding in the pool before slamming into a cliff. The roar of the falls was definitely bebopping and scatting all over my nerves as I contemplated the thought of going over it. The explosion at the bottom led to speculation of how deep the landing might be but probing the water near the landing showed a great deal of depth there. Still, a piton off this falls would really buff the scratch off your finish! What? That doesn’t even make sense! There seemed to be a good amount of flow going off the falls, concentrated in a narrow area and I was counting on the fact that this had been going on for hundreds of years to dig out a deep spot to land in. If I was to believe that theory, the other concern was a potential undercut created by the cliff below since it also been subject to the forces of nature for hundreds of years. I paddled out into the current and floated into the cliff a little downstream of where the main flow was hitting. It wasn’t undercut in that area but there also wasn’t a ton of current hitting there. The plan was to make two runs of the Ausable Chasm and then come back later in the evening when most of the tourists had left to scout out Rainbow Falls further. FKNA!
After two pleasant runs of the Ausable Chasm, I returned to Rainbow Falls to scout out the approach and the lip. The approach was frightening, with the currents swirling right to left as it cascaded steeply to the lip with a decent amount of water landing on rocks off the left bank. Landing on those rocks from 40 feet up would really knock your pole out of position! Indeed! Luckily, I could see that the water was rushing around the cliff and there was no pocket on the left to get trapped in. It would be easy to get pushed left and driving too far right meant a shallower lip and falling 40 feet into green water. The line was tight, like my stomach before I make brown in the morning. As I walked back toward my boat, I was very unsure of running the drop. It was intense, like the time I saw a double rainbow. I typically like to talk about drops when I am nervous so I started jabbering away to Adam. He quickly informed me that he was not experienced enough to give any feedback. I told him that I needed to talk to someone to allow me to sort my thoughts out loud. This is a strategy that really helps me to prepare mentally for the challenge at hand and motivates me to run many drops when I am on the fence. As I continued to talk, I was able to visualize running the successful line in my mind and I found myself putting my gear on. My nerves were definitely jumpy and I put my lacrosse shoulder pads on backward and needed to remove my drytop to get things straight. Then, I put my drytop on backward and needed help getting that turned around. Some might consider these events to be bad omens. Well, the Dogg didn’t get where he is by being afraid of circumstantial issues! Black cats, the number 13, cracks in the sidewalk, Empusa, the occasional hangnail! Heh! These matters concern not the Dogg! My mind was keenly focused on the drop and little else as I eventually suited up with all my gear in normal position. Adam went down and got in his boat to set safety and Eric Ruhl stayed up on the cliff to shoot pictures and video. The last thing I said to the guys before I went to put on was that I was going to come out marshall, with guns blazing! I had no interest in testing the depth of the pool. My goal was to land at a 45 degree angle to penetrate the pool some to ease the jolt. Penetration, no matter how slight, still constitutes the act! If I flattened out, I would tuck a little forward and deal with the impact. I downed a quick swig of high octane sarsaparilla to wet my whistle and then headed out to take on the falls. FKNA!
I walked down to the riverbank and got ready to put in. The sun was very pretty in the evening sky and I got a very postive vibe from the beauty of the setting I was in. I slid off the bank, ran a small drop and was in the pool above Rainbow Falls. I was strapped in and dialed for chaos! What does that even mean? Just go with it. As I entered the approach, things looked more chaotic than they had from the bank. The water appeared to be pushing harder to the left. I counteracted that with some right angle and some strong strokes. As I reached the cascading part right before the lip, I decided to relax my angle and allow my boat to stay in the flow so I would fall in the spout of water. As I reached the lip, I took a light lefty stroke to raise my bow some and to turn a little to the right to avoid the wall at the bottom. I could feel my angle heading toward perfect as I fell. I landed at a 45 degree angle, which although it helped to absorb the impact, still produced a big hit. As I emerged from the falls and washed into the pillow against the cliff, I lost my balance and flipped. I got worked against the wall for a few seconds before rolling and catching the eddy that Adam was sitting in. Oh Yeah! The Dogg had aced another SIKy! CRUCIAL! I had emerged victorious from the most precise of lines! After some yelling and fist pumping, we decided to throw the boats in the panel van and head out before attracting too much attention. In the excitement, we sped out of there a little too fast and soon the lights of a cop car came on. Luckily, we flashed him the secret wave that undercover cops use to get out of a ticket and he left us alone. Yep, we escaped clean as a whistle! What? Are whistles really clean? We headed to the bar to celebrate this momentous occasion with a bender of Buffalo Trace, White Dog Mash and Hurricane Malt Liquor! Who’s got it better than us? Nobody! FKNA!
That was a pretty good story, don’t you think? Made me laugh to beat the band. Well, parts anyway. I hope you folks enjoyed yourselves. Catch you further on down the river. FKNA!
Footage to come in All Things Brown TV Episode 4!
