Immersion Research 2008

A few weeks ago, long-time IR supporter and athlete Jed Selby sent me pictures of his recent trip to California, and I happened to notice that in one of the shots, he appears to be running a rather large waterfall backwards. I wrote him back, and he verified that he indeed ran the drop stern-first, and sent me the full photo sequence. He also sent me the post he made on his South Main kayak team blog. Here is an excerpt, detailing what happened. The full photo set is at the bottom.

From Jed’s blog post:

When running a 50-foot waterfall, it’s usually the on-water portion of the adventure that I’m most concerned about. But sitting in my boat, wedged precariously between two rocks, it was the eight-foot “seal launch” directly above the lip of the 50 footer that had me most concerned. Ideally I would have a calm pool above the drop in which to prepare. But in this case just getting into my boat without prematurely sliding down the rock and off the waterfall was a challenge. Once I was safely in my boat, I pushed as hard as I could to lift myself and my 90-pound boat up and onto the narrow rock that I would be sliding down. I pivoted 90 degrees and let my bow hang over the edge. I was perfectly positioned to slide down 8 feet of granite and then directly off 50-foot Dead Bear Falls.

The waterfall had a cave on the right side of the landing so my intended line was to aim slightly left and straighten out on the lip, avoiding said cave. I ran the scenario through my head several times, planning how I would push off, the stroke I would take at the lip and then the forward tuck to minimize the impact of the landing. Once all the steps were clear in my mind, I pushed off.

I rocketed down the granite ramp and hit the water at the lip only to find that it was slightly shallower than it looked. I could feel the rock shelf at the lip catch the nose of my boat, and in the next moment I felt the full weight of my stern, loaded with my overnight camping gear, pull like a heat-seeker for the pool 50 feet below. Before I knew it, I was looking over my shoulder and spotting my landing as my boat lined up perfectly backwards and the freefall commenced.

My back broke the tension of the water and completely softened the landing as I entered the pool below. I went deep and surfaced backwards and upright, clear of the recirculating hole at the base of the falls and the pothole on river right. I couldn’t have run it better if I’d planned it—backwards that is.