Breakfast consisted of a quarter of a cliff bar and class V. Ten feet from the put in, we were in a serious boulder garden with solid drops in between. I was all about moving quickly because the water was cold and high, and way pushier than the day before. In fact, I don't think I'd want to be on the stream much higher. Paddling through one particularly steep section, I noticed a significant drop ahead, so I went for the very last, one-boat eddy with a pourover protecting it. I tried to get to the inside and over the pourover, but managed to hit it in such a way that I pinned - HARD - on the rock. I was able to get my hand on the bottom to keep my head up, and looked upstream at Scotty coming downstream. At this point I was doing everything I could to get my boat off the pin. After a solid minute of stickiness, I managed to slide off the pin while flipping over. Rolling quickly, I was initiated into the drop, down the slide and then boofed through the hole, which rolled me, and then bang, I was in the eddy below. Everyone else came down, and Paul exclaimed, "We are here! We made it to the campground."

"We paddled from tropical jungle to desert in ten miles, from lush ferns to prickly pear cacti..."

With my heart pounding, we got out to see if anyone was at the campground. Nope! So we scouted the ledges there, and it was at this point that we both realized our cameras wouldn't work due to condensation. The video part ended here. Bummer, or relief depending on the way you looked at it. We ran through the slides in front of us and down to another set of huge waterfalls. The first was pretty ugly (about 25 feet), and we were all haggard emotionally and physically so we portaged. The second one was a sweet 20 footer that everyone ran. Then more class V.

We continued about a mile down below the campground when I remembered that Paul and Scott had said on a previous scout the whole river goes into a metal grate for irrigation towards the bottom, and there weren't any eddies before it for several hundred yards. After asking Paul if he knew approximately how far down it was, and he responded," maybe a quarter mile/ half mile?"

I promptly found an appropriate take out in between two cliffed-out sections. The riverbed was so steep here that we had to rope our boats up. Once we were up the bank and after we exchanged high-fives, we started hiking. We hiked for a solid mile and a half before reaching the confluence. Before we put in for the Waimea, I looked at my phone to see what time it was, quizzed everyone, and on average they were an hour and a half off. They said it was around 11-12 and it was really 1:30pm. Doing the painful math, I realized it was approx. 10 miles to the ocean- our destination, and if we weren't careful, we would be bivying again tonight. But the boys' unrelenting optimism convinced me that we should go- not to mention there was no way I was hiking three miles and 2,000 vertical feet to the canyon rim, with no one waiting for us at the top. No one had ever navigated the 10 miles between the ocean and us. It dropped approximately 100 ft. per mile, and there was about 3,000 cfs in the river through the awe-inspiring canyon.

We pushed off; knowing that there was one low head dam we had to look out for, and I prayed that there weren't any more huge rapids. Within the first mile I had a good feeling for its character, and was lost in the scenery. A solid class III-IV big water run is what we experienced. The low head dam was built in a friendly manner and made me wish I had my play boat.

We paddled from tropical jungle to desert in ten miles, from lush ferns to prickly pear cacti; just beauty in its raw, pure form. The clouds parted, the sun shined, and we made quick time. Apart from the occasional barbed wired fence across the river at the bottom, there were minimal hazards. My head was in a space of clarity and perpetual motion was achieved. I was thankful for making it through the steepest sections, and appreciative for the opportunity to view the canyon from the bottom looking up. By the time we had run five miles it was clear that we would make it down well before dark.

It was in between rapids towards the bottom where Paul told me that the confluence of the Waimea River and the Pacific Ocean is were Captain Cook first discovered the Hawaiian Islands. What a trip.

At the end of the day, we found out the Astro Van was still stuck at the put in. The tributaries hadn't come down enough to get it out. Jeff and Todd (our ground support) had been picked up by Jamie, Lisa, Scott, and Lori and had been taken to the Reggae concert the night before. From there they went back to the airport, rented a 4 wheel drive vehicle, and came back to rendezvous with us.

We drove back to Hanalei that evening to get a few hours of sleep, woke up the next morning and drove back to Waimea Canyon. We hiked our boats back into the gorge 3 miles and 2,000 feet down, hiked up the Koaie, and put in where we took out the day before. The river had come down significantly, so the grip factor had loosened a bit. It was beautiful weather though, so we completed the descent down to the confluence. The grate turned out to be only diverting about a 100 cfs, and there was at least 500cfs still in the river, so it was easily avoidable. We paddled all the way back down the Waimea Canyon, and had a celebration dinner half a mile from the confluence of the Waimea River and the ocean. If only Captain Cook could have seen the source of this most beautiful river. What a beautiful place.

I flew out @ 2pm the next day.

by Sam Drevo
Sam has been paddling since the age of nine and competed in his first World Championships at 15. Now semi-retired and based in Portland, Ore, he operates Northwest River Guides, a kayaking school and rafting multi-day outfitter. To learn more about Sam, read WetDawg.com's recent interview with him.