Alright, so here is everything from my perspective. 1) As I eddied out in the top river left eddy, I knew a boat was being surfed because of commotion I could hear from the top. I waited in the top river left eddy for about 5 minutes until all the commotion seemed to have died down and I thought it was clear. There were no visible signals being given to upstream traffic from this point in the rapid. This is when the video starts. 2) When I ran it in July, I eddied out on river right (the last eddy on the right just above the hole), and this was my plan this time. As I went through the top hole, my bow was pointed toward this eddy. This was about the time I hear GO LEFT and see that the extraction crew is still working on getting the boat out. 3) I tried to correct, but could not get left at this point. In hindsight, I should have continued to drive into the eddy. This put me on a perfect collision course for the hole and the canoe. 4) My last stroke was an attempt to clear the canoe, which lifted the bow enough to hit directly below/on the gunwale. I remember the sound it made very clearly and knew I had destroyed it. In the moment, I was not aware of the splintered gunwale. Afterwards, I realized it had put two gashes in my drysuit, one of which gave me a decent scratch on my arm. 5) I knew my only real hope of getting out of the hole was in a death grip on the canoe, so I held on and was imagining being pulled out with the canoe. I flipped as they were getting both of us out of the hole, but still wanted to hold on in case they could swing us both into the eddy. This is when they started yelling to let go. 6) Swam the drop, took a small hit on left hip, swam like hell to the right and got out well above Junkyard. In hindsight, I can think of plenty of mistakes on my part, plenty of ways it could have gone better, but plenty of ways it could have been worse. The canoeist was part of our group. He is a great guy and was well capable of the run. He took the loss well and was mainly concerned for me and casually remarked that he should have gotten the red/heavy model. It had a huge dent in it after the Horns, where he had a good line, but took a hit that would be routine in class 4-5 creeking. He had literally bought the boat new the day before. It didnt last 24 hours. I dont have aftermath pictures, just my first hand video, but I will get some pictures from the people that have them.
Posted on: Mon, 29 Sep 2014 15:51:52 +0000
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