What's Style Got to Do With It?
Foolproof boats have whitewater paddlers wondering whether expedited access to the world's toughest whitewater is good for the sport
From a river-running perspective, everything is wrong with Sunset Falls. The 275-foot slide on the Skykomish River near Seattle is the embodiment of pretty much all you learn to fear as a whitewater boater. The nearly vertical maelstrom is laced with sieves that can swallow a human body and hold it for days. It’s full of holes capable of ripping paddlers from their boats and flush-drowning swimmers. There are unseen dangers, like whatever lurks beneath the 40-foot rooster tail about halfway down—a hidden rock formation no one can identify confidently but all agree is bad.
Sunset Falls has been run five times in kayaks, including a 2010 descent by world waterfall record holder Tyler Bradt that fellow pro kayaker Rush Sturges called “one of the burliest things I have ever filmed.” On May 21, 2017, record snowpack melting in the Cascades swelled the slide to 11,000 cubic feet per second, which is about four times the highest volume at which it had been attempted in a kayak.
Fifty-two-year-old Darren Vancil, though, was not particularly concerned about the high water
2,200 words to go
You’re just getting to the good part.
This story — and 42 issues of them — opens with a subscription.
Either one picks up right where you left off.
Join 7,000+ readers · Independently owned · Since 2008
Already a subscriber? Sign in
Adventure Journal — Print Quarterly
Stories like this, in your hands four times a year.
42 issues. 11 years. Independently owned. Printed on 70lb uncoated paper with a soft-touch cover, solar-powered, and shipped in a brown paper envelope. Free domestic shipping.
