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Fire Station Dinner Disaster
While setting the table before a dinner of tacos at station #1 Swing firefighter Andy McFarland generously places all the hot sauces of station #1 on the table. These included Salsa, D.N.R., Tabasco, Chipotle, and one unassuming bottle of Dave's Insanity Sauce. McFarland was quoted as saying "I just put them all out, I don't eat the stuff and don't know anything about them." Alberto, being a little late to the table sat down and made two large tacos. While the rest of the crews ate, he surveyed the collection of sauces and having strong ties "South of the Border" he decided the Dave's Insanity seemed to be just what he was looking for. Unknown to the rest of the crew and BC who were eating alongside him, he managed to place what is estimated to 3 - 4 tablespoons of the red concoction on his two tacos. He then sat down and started eating. Bite by bite over a period of several minutes he managed to completely consume the first taco and then started on the second. He consumed about half the second taco when BC Rankin noticed large amounts of sweat rolling down his face. Rankin put two and two together and started to snicker a bit when at this point Alberto gave the tell tale quote of "wow, this stuff is hot."
With Ranking laughing and the rest of us still unsure of what was going on, we looked up at Alberto to see the standard Dave's sauce table grip. That is where one grips the table with both hands, palms down, elbows locked. At this point, Captain Martin was heard saying "you didn't put that stuff on your taco, did you?" This was followed by a Jim Peters "You poor bastard!" Alberto at this point stated "I'm done" and went for water. He became a motivated individual as he cleaned and took out the trash and stomped around trying to take his mind off the pain. Quotes such as "If we get a dive call I am not wearing a wet suit" "call ARFF before you pass out" and "You may want to fill out an exposure report" were rampant. Other common quotes such as "just wait 8 hours and we will really see what you are made of" and "water can be fatal in large doses" were also circulated.
After careful analysis by the crews at station #1 the entire intake of Dave's sauce" was estimated to be 3.2 tablespoons! Good work Alberto! We will nominate him for a heroism award as well as firefighter of the year. Sorry Walters, your record of 1 teaspoon has fallen.Alberto is currently recovering in the TV room saying things like "People normally get paid a lot for a stunt like this!" Unfortunately, not only does he have to pay for the dinner, but also must pay 50 cents extra to cover the cost of all the sauce
Paddle Boatin’ Big Falls
In late September, I was contacted by my friend Steve Boren (of Bear Valley Raft Company) in regards to a late season South Fork of the Payette canyon trip. I was unable to make it, but Steve ended up going and when he returned, he stated that he thought a possible line was developing in the rapid know as Big Falls. He said it looked very tough, but wanted me to take a look at it to see what I thought.
On October 3rd 2000, we decided to go in and take a look with the outside chance of running it. On the drive up, we stopped at the big falls overlook, and I could tell that even at fall flows, it was still going to be a difficult run. We put in at Pine Flats hot springs and started our descent to the falls. There were three of us in the crew:
Scott Hall (bow right) – Firefighter, member of the Boise Water rescue team, commercial guide for Mackey Bar
Steve Boren (bow left) – Part owner of Bear Valley River Company, excellent boatman with many years on the river.
Greg Briggs (Guide) – Also on the Boise Fire Water Rescue team and a part time commercial guide for Action Whitewater on the Middle Fork of the Salmon.
We also had a girl by the name of Katie Hanson come along as photographer. She paddled the upper section but got out to do photos at Big Falls.
We were paddling a 12’ SOTAR raft with 18-inch main tubes.
We decided to do the trip as low key as possible. We wanted to be able to make our own decision to run it or not, and did not want to have the pressure of 6 or 8 people lined up with cameras pushing us to go.
We arrived at Big Falls at about 1:00 in the afternoon and walked down to take a look. It was much harder looking than Steve had made it sound. Granted the river was lower than usual, but there was still a tremendous amount of power to be dealt with. The water was moving very fast and violently. Here is a brief rundown of what we saw.
Big Falls drops about 30 –32 feet depending on what source you read. At the flow we ran it at (roughly 325 cfs) the rapid could be broken down into 4 drops.
The first one is about a 7-foot drop over about 15-20 feet horizontal. If this drop were by itself with a pool after it, I would rate it at class IV. This drop has a fairly tricky convergence of currents on the right side at the bottom. A fairly powerful lateral wave developed off the right side, and while not gigantic, one would not want to commit an error here with the rest of the rapid still remaining. The top drop looked like it needed to be run as far river left as possible. It is more of a vertical falls on the left side, but you stay away from the tricky lateral. I anticipated exiting this falls on a line that was left of center preparing for the middle two drops.
After the first drop is a quick moving flat section about 30 feet long. There are some domers throughout this pool limiting the chances of maneuvering from side to side. We were expecting to be on the left side here, but not too far left because the water is surging over a slanted slab of rock that leads into a crevice, that would just be a bad place to be. If you are where you want to be, you will be about 2 feet off this slab as you line up for the second drop which is an eight footer (roughly) leading into a hole. The water is traveling very quickly as it enters this hole. The momentum in the water created by the first drop is building and the rapid starts coming real quick at this point. At the base of this second falls, the water jets down under a boil created by a very large rock positioned in the center of the river. This is what we determined to be the crux of the rapid. While navigating this hole, you have to be very aware of the monstrous rock in the center because you have to ride up on it’s boil, and then execute a turn 90 degrees to the left to line up for the third drop, a 4-5 falls, undercut on river left. Oh yeah, make sure you don’t flip on this huge rock as you are doing all the other stuff. This second and third drop combo is real tough and hard to figure out from the bank. Most of the current is under the boil and tough to read. It is also moving incredibly fast. If this drop stood by itself, I would have to rate it class V. Just a real tough combo move.
Keep in mind that throughout this whole rapid, the drops are not giving the feel of a low water rapid. At this flow, the rapid moves like it has 1300 – 2000 c.f.s. going down it. Big Falls is just so good at funneling all the water right into the main flow and no current is wasted in side channels. Also with this comes the reality that this river is dropping as many feet in this single rapid as the lower sections may drop in a mile. Each fall builds on the velocity created by the one above it speeding things up to a quick pace. The energy released is all transmitted into your boat making for a wet ride to say the least.
After exiting this middle section, you find yourself lining up for a huge wall, and then once off the wall, you have the large falls at the bottom. This wall has a fair amount of current going up against it but a solid “high side” will keep the boat level. You just have to realize that as you are coming off this high side, you will have about 3 feet to start preparing for the final drop. The bottom falls is right at about 11 feet of vertical. It empties into a huge pool that is very slowly recirculating. The boil line is also about 15 – 20 feet downstream, so it is not quickly punched. The one benefit to this slow recirculating, is that even if you get caught in it, you can probably paddle through it and exit out the bottom. All in all, we determined that if we run it we were definitely going to be real busy from top to bottom. Due to the aerated water and limited buoyancy, a swim here would be very bad.
After our scout, we were a little hesitant to attempt the run. We walked up and down several times talking about every scenario possible. There were a lot of places where problems could occur and the swim would be not one little bit of fun. We decided to try a partial run through the lower falls just to see how we felt about the boat and crew. We put in right below the crux and paddled out the river left eddy right above the lower falls. To increase our ability to “punch” the holes, we decided to move Scott and Steve back off the bow to a point where they straddled the front thwart. By doing this (taking the weight off the bow), we were able to keep the bow from burying too deep after the drop. We ran it and had a perfect run.
I then went up and looked at the drop top to bottom and decided that I was wiling to guide it if my crew was willing to paddle. We talked about it and then decided to try it. I believe it was at this point that we also might have done another first; we did a reverse portage of big falls. We got to the top and with our photographer ready, we pushed off. I tell you, the scout and the beach scenes were really scary, and at times it was tough to even breath, but once we pushed off, my mind cleared and all you could see were the drops.
We hit the top falls perfect. Our only problem was that on our exit, we did not get quite the push I expected from the lateral on the right, and the boat tracked quite a ways towards the right side. This made our entry into the second falls a bit different than I expected. We ended up dropping into the second falls about 8 feet further right than I wanted. This set us up square for the rock in the center. Steve and Scott did an excellent job through this part. While scouting, I told them that should we hit this rock, they had to high side and then make certain that our bow got lined up straight for the third drop. I was in back draw stroking as hard as I could to slow down the back end and Steve and Scott literally grabbed the rock and pushed the bow into the slot. We ended up entering the third drop perfectly on the far right side. Even with the perfect entry, we were still slammed into the undercut on the left. This is probably the closest we came to flipping. In the pictures you can see the boat on about a 40-degree angle as we get shot through the slot. If your raft is off by a foot or more, this will probably be a flip and the swim would be very bad. As it was however, we made the move. We went into the wall above the bottom drop, and with a solid high side, we stayed upright and turned into the bottom drop. I threw in one last draw stroke to turn us square and we were through. What a relief it was to have that one behind us.
Over all, this is probably the hardest rapid I have ever done in a paddleboat. I don’t recommend trying this rapid, and I will probably never do it again. That second/third drop is just too sketchy in a paddleboat. The cost of a flip or swim here are too great. If you ever try this for yourself, remember to make sure everyone in the boat is very competent and is comfortable swimming in whitewater. Each person needs to know the game plan cause there just isn’t enough time to try to yell out “Hey Scott, would you push the bow off those rocks?” All the strokes need to be talked about before the run. We found that unlike standard class IV and V, on this drop we needed to have each person have a conceptual idea as to where we wanted to be and how we wanted to get there. Very few commands were called in the water, most were decided on before we launched. With two hours of scouting, we knew exactly where we wanted the boat and each person did what they needed to keep it on line. With everyone in the same mind set, we had ourselves a successful run!
Mexico Rafting
Every so often while going through a winter’s day in Boise, I reflect back to all the things I love about summer. I think the thing I miss most is whitewater. I know it is still possible to find a section of the Payette where the ice has not completely frozen the river over, but dry suits, snow and ice don’t do a lot to motivate me. While sitting around with a few friends one cold night, we started talking and decided that to quench our whitewater bug, we needed to travel South of the border. Visions of a tropical paradise filled our minds as we started planning our trip to Mexico.
After a week or two of number crunching and phone calls, we figured out some basic logistics. We needed to cram 8 of us into a motor home with the determination to travel 6000 miles cross-country. $1500 would be our gas budget with a little extra thrown in for food and beer. Our boats would be pretty basic, 2 kayaks and 2 12’ SOTAR rafts. We set our date of departure for January 12th 2001 with a return on January 28th. With a few phone calls we rounded up some adventurous friends and were on our way.
Our crew consisted of Jim Peters, Christa Stumpf, Scott Hall, Brigitta Ruggiero, Steve Boren, Mark LaSalle, Renee Kline, and myself Greg Briggs
The drive down went relatively smooth. We stopped over in Arches National Park for an afternoon, and after a bit more driving we were at the border. We got to spend some extra time in Brownsville, Texas. This was due to a little bit of a paperwork mix-up. In the future we will make sure our passports, vehicle title, and trailer registration are with us and not sitting on the desk back at home. The Mexican border officials appreciate all the above-mentioned documentation. If you do happen to forget this stuff, it is at least nice to have friends that are willing to break into your house, track down the paperwork and fax/FedEx it to the Brownsville Airport (Thanks Matt and Gina).
OK, we made it into Mexico and were on our way further south. The drive through Mexico went real smooth except for the 7 hours we all had to spend in a Mexican police station. That was the result of a small fender bender we got into, but that is a whole different story.
Finally in Mexico, we met up with a friend Grant Amaral to figure out our river logistics. Grant has a company Augaazul.com that gives kayaking trips on many of the same rivers we wanted to run in rafts. When asked how to find him, he said to leave the city of Ciudad Valles and when we got 30 miles out of town, all we had to do was ask about a Gringo and everyone would know who we were talking about. Sure enough, it worked and we were drinking cervezas and tequila XXXXXXXhours after leaving Boise.
Grant set us up with some great rivers to run along with a driver who would shuttle our motor home to the bottom of the river to pick us up. Over the next 7 days we were going to see some amazing rivers.
We spent our first day on the Tampaon River. This is a fairly small river with just enough room to fit our 12-foot rafts down. The river was class III and gave us an easy trip to start off with. One of the most amazing features of this river is that at one point, the river completely disappears below ground for over 100 yards. It is just gone. There are trees and everything over the top of it. Together with the turquoise water and the 1000-foot cliffs, it was an amazing place to be. Our driver met us at the takeout and we were on our way to the next river.
The second river we decided to run was the El Salto. All we knew about the river was that it contained a fairly substantial 23-foot waterfall. We were told that just down stream of the put in, the river would disappear over a horizon line and we would need to be alert to pull over in time. We launched our boats onto the river and off we went. It was very fast for the first several hundred yards. There were no eddies and 10’ cliff walls made the banks. I was in the lead in my kayak and knew that if the falls presented themselves in this section, the rafts would have no way to pull over. I didn’t have a lot of time to think about it as we shot down the narrow canyon. Shortly thereafter, I came around a blind corner and ahead of me was a sharp horizon line. I caught a micro eddy in my kayak and signaled the rafts to pull over. They fortunately caught a larger eddy on the other side of the river and the guides walked down to take a look at the drop. With a closer look, we found this drop to not be the 23-foot waterfall. That was the good news. The bad news is that we did find the 23-foot waterfall and it was about 40 feet downstream of the drop that our boats were on the brink of going over. So here is the deal. We are looking at an 8-foot drop with a big undercut leading into a 40-foot pool that leads into the 23-foot falls. Lets just say that you don’t want to have any problems in the 8 footer or you are going to be on the fast track to a bad day
I went down first and after narrowly missing the undercut and back endering in the hole at the bottom I was through. I hung out in the 40-foot pool to pick up swimmers from the rafts. Actually all I could imagine was having a couple of swimmers from the rafts grabbing onto my kayak and pulling me over the big falls backwards. Fortunately, the rafts came through relatively clean except for Jim Peters clobbering the undercut with his arm, leg and helmet. No one fell out and I was off the hook. We pulled the rafts over and walked down to look at the falls. 23 feet does not seem like much when you imagine it, but when you are there with your boat and paddle it is enormous. We decided that the drop was no place for a raft, but Renee and I decided to run it in our kayaks. I barely had time to get my camera out as Renee was peeling out into the current. She went right off the center of the drop and disappeared into the converging currents. She got hammered, but eventually washed out of the hole at the bottom. It didn’t look like too much fun, but she survived it. I was next to go but I chose to avoid the higher volume in the center, and ran the left side of the flume. It was an amazing ride. My most vivid recollection of the drop was noticing that all the water droplets around me were falling at the exact same rate as my boat. They were just kinda dancing in front of my face. Thinking about these drops while you freefall is about the same as pondering the fact that you just caught the downhill edge of your snowboard. Right as you start to enjoy the view, you get clobbered. I hit the bottom and was lucky enough to wash clear of the falls. I rolled up and was excited to have the drop behind me.
We continued down the river for several more miles and experienced a fabulous collection of 6 foot -12 foot waterfalls. With about 15-20 good rapids it was a fun day for everyone. The rafts started to get real good at bracing for the impacts below the falls. One flip and 6 or so swimmers later we were done and off to another river.
Our next section to run was a river called the Micos. The Micos runs right through our friend Grant’s property. We drove up the river a few miles and walked down a long stairwell put in for access to a hydro plant. When we got to the bottom it was absolutely beautiful. Immediately upstream was a 90-foot waterfall and in front of us was a huge turquoise pond leading to our first drop, a 17-foot waterfall. As we looked into the distance, the river just seemed to fall forever.
This was probably the most beautiful sections of water I have ever run. The cascading falls combined with the green foliage was something that will stay with me forever. The first waterfall was one of the smoothest I have ever taken a boat over. After the fall, kayaks pierce the water so well it makes for a relatively comfortable ride. Renee and I had great runs. The rafts were next and with some good setup and guiding, they also made it look easy.
The drops were coming at us one right after another. Each one was at least 10 feet, averaging around 13. The rafts were doing a great job with each drop except for one small error. Jim, while lining up his raft for a 13 foot fall, caught his front right on a rock which sent him spinning 180 degrees and sending him off the fall backwards. Jim landed safely in the deep water, and also managed to cushion the impact for his crew who came toppeling in on him.
Another thing that I found to be quite amazing about these falls is that many tend to form large caves behind them. If you can get up the speed in your raft and find a weak spot in the drop, you can break through into some fairly large rooms. One was large enough that we were able to fit in both rafts, both kayaks and still go on a hike inside of it. About 2 hours into the trip and 7 falls later, I remember thinking of how incredible the drops were. I wondered how far we must have traveled. I then looked upstream and saw the put in not more than 1/3 of a mile away. It is not the horizontal that makes for a long trip, but rather the vertical. We paddled and scouted and ran for another hour or so and then ended up at Grant’s house. I can’t tell you what a great day we had. Hopefully the pictures will give you a taste of the beauty of the place.
We took the next couple of days off and toured Ciudad Valles and some just spent the day relaxing in the sun. We stocked up on food, took showers and prepared for our next trip, the Santa Maria.
The Santa Maria is a trip that can be run in kayaks in a day fairly easily. We were told however that with rafts we were going to have to do it as a two day. This was because of the number of portages. With rafts being so much larger, we could not fit through some of the extremely narrow slots. We had to get out and drag our boats around many of them. We decided to take this advice and packed for 2 days. We knew we were going to have to carry our gear quite a few times, so we went real light. For the 8 of us we had just 3 dry bags and a pile of thermorests. Everything fit quite nicely into rafts. With about 40 Mexicans looking on, we pushed off on our trip. Lots of class III rapids greeted us and we were moving along at quite a nice pace. I went ahead in my kayak with Renee so that we could identify the portages before the rafts got there. That way only a minimum amount time was spent off the water. We ran into a few spots where we had to line the boats. This was due to some mild strainers and the occasional narrow spot. I did manage to keep an eye on a GPS we had and was wondering why it seemed that out of a 12-mile trip, we were already 8 miles done. If we were going to take 2 days to do it, it was probably best to pull over soon so that we had something left to raft in the morning.
We found a great beach, set up our tarps and enjoyed a great sunset listening to the squawks of the parrots in the surrounding trees. It was a wonderful starry night in one of the darkest skies I have ever been in.
We awoke the next morning and took our time getting on the water. Still, having so little gear, we were on our way at 10:00. We wondered why we hadn’t tried to do the trip in one day and we soon started to figure this out. About 200 yards from camp, we hit our first major rapid. This one was a crazy boulder garden, leading into several slots and falls much too narrow for our boats. We got them pulled over and started lining, portaging, pushing, sliding and for short sections paddling them down the river. After about ½ hour we were on our way again.
There were still some great rapids that we ran. The kayaks espically had a good time since they needed about ¼ the water of the rafts. The portages however were still there and we needed all the time we could get. We found that a quick decision to run, line or portage was what was needed to get us through quickly. Too often it is possible to spend 30 minutes deciding that it can’t be run and that really slows down the group.
We spent the next 2 hours traveling with no more than 200 yards between rapids. All the scouting was time consuming, but everyone kept a good attitude. When we were traveling our last mile, the river eased into a real fun class III stretch and we made up some time. To top this river off, at the takeout we found a huge 300-foot waterfall. The falls are known as Tamul falls and are spectacular. The falls enter from river left and fill the valley with mist. You need to takeout at his spot because downstream travel is impossible. The falls create 50 mph upstream winds that cannot be paddled against. Not even logs in the river will float past this point.
That leads up to another dilemma which is not we are at a take out with a 300 foot cliff. Fortunately our shuttle driver had arranged for 3 locals to drag all our gear up the cliff by rope. They were the strongest people for their size I have ever seen. Hand over hand they pulled everything up as we loaded it from below. There were some wooden ladders attached to the canyon wall we were able to use to get out and we were then on our way.
We got back to Grant’s house late that night and everyone was exhausted from the Santa Maria. We did however manage to find the energy to run the Micos one more time. We took lots of pictures and ended it with a lunch at a very small restaurant located on the side of the river.
I can’t even explain what an amazing place it was to go whitewater kayaking. The only thing I can say is that if you find yourself with a few extra days in the winter, go down and see it yourself. You can drive, or if you want to save a huge amount of logistics, look at Grant’s website and give him a call. You will never boat in any place like this again.