Kenny's Epitaph

Kenny Gould, extreme kayaker, Pacific Crest Trail round-trip hiker, snowboarder, skateboarder, sometimes road tour biker and a sultan of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, died this week in an apparent suicide after leaping from the steep cliffs at Big Valley Bluff overlooking the North Fork of the American River. He was 27.

"...we all must die in the same way we lived. For Kenny, that meant nothing less then living, and leaving, a picture of sheer, untamed beauty."

For those who knew Kenny, the loss to the boating community and the larger outdoor community is beyond words. A steep creeker at heart who helped pioneer such runs as Big Kimshew Creek, Sailors Creek and Screwauger Canyon on the North Fork Middle American, Kenny had a special knack for knowing what was running when, and then setting a mission to do it. He liked to disappear into the wilderness for days at a time to cache food for later use on remote multi-day runs, or canyoneer tiny drainages during the dry season in consideration for next spring's fodder. More than a few marquee names of our sport gladly followed him into such nooks as Upper Cherry Creek, Big Kimshew or Royal Gorge, and listened to his beta on the massiveness of Yosemite's Tenaya Slide.

Kenny was always quick with a smile and had an irrepressible sense of humor, but he also had his demons. Mental illness tormented him for years, and to know Kenny on a bad day was to feel a crushing pain in your own soul. I won't address him by his river nickname here, because I never liked it and neither did he, but people didn't call him that because of his whitewater antics alone.

The place Kenny picked to die couldn't be more suitable to the man, though. Big Valley Bluff, which stands sentinel some 2,500 feet above where Tadpole Creek enters the North Fork at the top of Generation Gap, is as remote, rugged and beautiful as Kenny himself. He took me there a week before he died, and we sat on the rock from which we believe he jumped, taking in the view of Royal Gorge upstream, Sailors Creek on the other side of the canyon and the East Fork Gorge creeping in behind us. He was proud of that place, and IÕm proud that he considered me enough of a friend to share it with me as he did.

Myself, Chad Daugherty and Rod Matthews returned there this evening, to bid a final farewell to our lost bro. As we sat on the bluff, watching the valley fill with mist in the fading light, a solitary bald eagle flew up before us, gliding in wide arches above Kenny's final resting place before disappearing downstream into the gorge.

To us, that eagle was not only a reminder that Kenny finally ran the biggest drop of all, but that we all must die in the same way we lived. For Kenny, that meant nothing less then living, and leaving, a picture of sheer, untamed beauty. We can't help thinking that he'll still be boating with us, flying downstream, on many runs to come.

-- Newcastle, Calif. (October 5, 2002)

by Joe Bousquin, www.kevsmom.com