Preface
In 2001, I was with Steve Daniel, a respected kayaker. We were at Bull Creek after torrential rains, staring at the rapid that we later named Bores. The left side of the rapid had water, but we wanted no part of it. We were here to run the V, a violent six-foot drop with undercut ledges on the right, a potential keeper hydraulic on the left, and a boiling tower of foam seven feet high in the middle. I didn’t see a clean route. Steve favored staying right and cranking hard to the left after the drop to avoid the undercut ledge. I was leaning left, where I’d have a tricky setup, and where it would be tough to identify my line, but I felt that I could find it and jump over the hydraulic after making a dicey move at the top. We both dismissed the line in the middle. Neither of us thought we could keep our boats upright after running the drop and hitting the tower, which we called a haystack because of its shape. Neither of us was happy with our intended line, so we stood there and stared.
Then a funny thing happened. A little boy, maybe 11 years old, came over with a $10 inflatable raft. He shoved it into the main current, and without paddle, life jacket, helmet, or any skill whatsoever, he jumped right in. He showed absolutely no fear. The stream predictably took him where most of the water was going, right into the “tower of power.” The horizontal force of the water shot him through before the tower could budge him an inch. We both laughed hysterically. He should have been ...