The Grand Canyon (Entry Falls)

At mile six, the canyon narrowed and a significant horizon line appeared. We paddled hard to river right to catch an eddy. With the water boiling off the walls and pushing us back to the middle, there was no way we could catch an eddy to scout (even if there was one).

So we tried paddling upstream to stall ourselves above the drop to find a line through the chaos. We could not hold our upstream position for very long and were forced to run the drop. As we entered, Jay in front of me, we realized this was an enormous rapid with a terminal hole halfway across the river.

We narrowly missed the first center-left hole that would have surely torn us apart. Although we paddled for all we were worth to river right, we were pushed back into the middle of the rapid and into the next drop. I saw Jay disappear and get torn up in one of the largest holes I have ever seen anyone ride.

As I entered the hole, I caught one last look at Jay getting tossed in his red Freefall before getting a beating myself in the same hole. At this point, I knew I needed to hold onto my paddle, and hoped my spray skirt would hold and I would be washed out or be able to work my way out.

I tucked forward on the deck of my Excel and after 40-50 seconds of uncontrolled cartwheels, I flushed from the hole exhausted, beat-up, and scared. I immediately looked for Jay and couldn't spot him. I wondered if he was still in the hole or if he was parted from his boat. The rapid was not over - I still had to negotiate some huge standing waves before the water slowed down.

"...hiking out of the canyon was not an option because of the vertical walls."

After breaking through the enormous wave train, I was relieved to see Jay downstream, fighting his way into a small eddy. I met up with him in that first eddy we had seen for miles. We decided we had just run Entry Falls. We were both shook up and realized the river was flooded and whether we decided to hike out or paddle on, it was going to be tough.

From our eddy, we could see another rapid downstream with an eddy above it to get out and scout. We looked at the rapid (Wicked Wanda's) and it looked big, but runnable. So we put back in and ran the drop with no problems.

At this point, hiking out of the canyon was not an option because of the vertical walls. We paddled on and ran some more pushy class five rapids. I began having some doubts as were getting tossed around into uncontrolled pirouettes and mystery moves in eddy lines. Our large heavy boats were no match in this size of water!