Editor's Note: The following is an excerpt from the book Whitewater Classics, Fifty North American Rivers Picked by the Continent's Leading Paddlers.

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The Susitna River is vintage Alaska - big, wild, and filled with stories of adventure. The river starts in a stark landscape of rock and ice at the foot of the Alaska Range, then winds through the spruce-covered Alaskan interior for nearly 300 miles, growing into a moving gray sea of over 100,000 cfs before reaching the Cook Inlet near the city of Anchorage.

A run down the Susitna would be nothing more than a typical wilderness float trip were it not for one 11-mile section of the river ominously known as Devil's Canyon. Here the cold silty Susitna explodes into a minefield of holes, giant exploding waves, and unruly whirlpools. The first and most storied rapid of the canyon is Devil Creek, a drop that nearly brought disaster on the first descent of the river.

It was the summer of 1970 when adventurers Jack Hession and Dave Christie put in near the river's source at the convenient Denali Highway bridge. The duo had anticipated some whitewater on the river, but planned to portage their canvas Klepper kayaks around anything significant. Running big rapids was not the focus of their trip, they simply wanted an adventure in Terra Incognita. They found it.

At class III-IV Watana Canyon 64 miles below the put-in, they found the first of the expected rapids, and portaged without mishap. Roughly 60 miles below this first short canyon, Christie swam out of a hole in a class III rapid. Hession was right there for the rescue, but progress toward shore was slow and laborious as he towed Christie and his water-logged boat. The huge, swift Susitna swept them downstream. Boulders and the river's big swirling eddylines prevented them from making shore, and the rescue dragged on. As they rounded a bend, the jet-like roar of Devil Creek Rapid suddenly put a heightened urgency to the scene, and Hession yelled at Christie to let go of the boat they were towing. Fatigue now wearing on both men, they paddled and kicked for shore at frantic speed with the last of their energies. At the brink of the rapid, Hession got his bow onto a submerged ledge as Christie lunged for shore and scrambled to his feet. Hession's boat began to slip off the rock, but Christie grabbed it and hauled it onto the bank where both men sat and let the realization of their near miss sink in.

Four days later, they staggered out of the woods at the lonely railway stop of Gold Creek. Christie had been forced to make the wilderness march barefoot.

"He felt one or both of his partners had surely drowned in the terminal looking rapid below him..."

Two years later, Hession paddled with Walt Blackadar while the famous Idahoan was on a paddling trip in Alaska, and it wasn't long before Blackadar had his eye on the Susitna. Following a nerve-wracking, treetop buzzing overflight of the canyon with legendary bush pilot Cliff Hudson, Blackadar drove to the put-in and launched on the mighty Susitna with Kay Swanson and Roger Hazelwood.

Four days later, they arrived at Devil Creek Rapid late in the afternoon. Blackadar took one good look at the big water mess and proclaimed, "If you're running that, you're running it by yourselves." That was enough for Hazelwood and Swanson. Despite being behind schedule, with a search plane due to arrive in 36 hours if they didn't make the take-out on time, they decided to make the long portage up and around the rapid.

After a few hours' sleep, they began the portage at 3 A.M. in the northern twilight. Following an arduous six hours of boat hauling, and a good dose of hairball boating, the threesome got out to scout yet another rapid as afternoon turned into evening. The river roared in a continuous series of massive waves that led out of sight into an ever narrowing canyon. The sun shone a blinding glare, casting dark shadows on the walls of the gorge, and illuminating the spray from the huge restless pulsing waves. The scene was terribly intimidating. There was talk of camping right there in the canyon's last open spot, and waiting for the search pilot to find them the next day, but Blackadar quickly discarded the idea. He growled, "I'm not having anyone come in after me," and returned to his boat. Hazelwood followed, and Swanson paddled third.

As Hazelwood crested one of the 20-foot waves of the rapid, he saw Blackadar in front of him, caught side surfing in a huge hole. Hazelwood barely missed hitting Walt, flipped over, and rolled up below the hole. He had made it through, but he was now in the lead, and bombing down a freight train of unknown water. He stroked for the first eddy he could reach, and caught a small surging pocket against the right cliff just above an awful looking drop. A tense minute later, he heard the voice of Blackadar yelling from upstream, "Swim, Kay, swim!" It seems Kay had also gone for a ride in the big hole, and now he and Blackadar were in a desperate rescue attempt. They flushed by Hazelwood, and were out of sight, around a corner.

Blackadar and Swanson flushed through the rapid below Hazelwood's eddy, made it to shore, and paddled the diminishing rapids to the take out, but Hazelwood knew none of this. He felt one or both of his partners had surely drowned in the terminal looking rapid below him, and any attempt to give chase would only result in another victim. Hazelwood delicately climbed out of his kayak onto the near-vertical cliff, and spent a fitful night of sleep roped to a narrow ledge above the water. The next day, he scrambled out of the canyon, and was prepared to start his survival hike downstream when an Air Force helicopter swooped in and plucked him out of his predicament. In the front seat of the chopper was a grinning Blackadar, giving a thumbs up.