4th of July weekend, Rock Island
Waterfall Tour- by Tanya and Dane
July 7, 2004
Pulled these photos off of my video camera
today. Tanya, Dane, and I did a couple of runs down Great
Falls on the 5th of July doing the river left line and the
far river right line into the “warm hole” (see
http://www.jacksonkayak.com/archived-stories/rock-island-rope-swing.cfm)
for warm hole when the waterfall isn’t running. On average
the waterfall runs 60-100 days per year. It has been running
every day since I got to Rock Island from Zoar Outdoor last
week, very cool. It got shut down today as the river got below
5,000 cfs and the lake started to drop. That is OK because
we got a bunch of runs in. Here is what they look like from
below, with me shooting from my kayak. On the first waterfall,
I am under a rock cliff overhang and water is dripping everywhere,
including on my camera. The first couple of shots of Dane
and Tanya are right below the lead in rapid (6 foot drop in
two stages) and I am holding onto a small bush in the eddy
right above the waterfall. This river left drop is a fun one
for learning to control your landing angles after going over
a small wave onto the takeoff ledge, and then a dead vertical
drop. Both Tanya and Dane styled it. On the second drop into
the warm hole- the “hole” was strong so I told
them to boof the heck out of it and Dane over did it landing
hard. The put in of this run is in a jungle, southeast style.
Fun stuff. Check out Tanya’s face
after running the second drop. Is this not what it is all
about!
