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When I got the chance to film Tyler Bradt

and friends training to run the world’s biggest

whitewater, I used a professional DSLR in an Aqua

Tech water housing. The rig weighs 8 lbs. and is

similar to Richard Hamilton Smith’s ammo-box in

one way: We both had to convince someone to

strap it to their boat and charge giant whitewater. — Greg Von Doersten

It’s In the CanIt’s always tricky messing with the karma between a man and his boat, especially when asking to clamp a camera box onto his canoe before he runs a big drop in the Grand Canyon. Fortunately Bob Foote likes a challenge.

You might ask what’s the big deal. People put GoPros on boats all the time. Well, it was 1984. The 35-mm film camera was cradled inside a .50-cal ammo can, its lens pointing out a small window I’d cut into the steel and then covered in Plexiglas. When Bob triggered the remote switch, the motor drive went ZZZIP-ZIP until the entire film roll was exposed. One of those shots became the April 1985 cover of Canoe magazine, but Bob drew the line when I asked him to run Lava Falls with it. — Richard Hamilton Smith

GReG vOn DOeRSTen

TYLeR BRADT

WHITe nILe, 2011

RICHARD HAmILTOn SmITH

BOB FOOTe

GRAnD CAnYOn, 1984

Joe

Kel

log

g

Gre

g V

on

Do

erst

en

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LAYne KenneDY

eRIK SImuLA

BOunDARY WATeRS CAnOe AReA

GReG vOn DOeRSTen

COnGO WHITe WATeR KAYAKInG exPeDITIOn TeAm

uGAnDA, AFRICA

the Portage“Park and play” wasn’t in the lexicon of the voyageurs, or any native American tribe. When the water ran out or the river became too steep, they portaged. And as much as we modern paddlers enjoy the easy road access to our favorite day-trips, it’s portaging that makes the journey. On a weeklong whitewater canoe trip on the Dog River north of Lake Superior, a friend and I endured a mile-long portage on an overgrown trail with two sections of sheer cliff, the second of which ended abruptly in a powerful whirlpool laced with floating floodwater debris. The ordeal took us an entire day, nearly leaving us stranded without boat and gear at the harrowing end of the trail. Strange how hardships soften with time and morph into compelling memories: I wouldn’t want the Dog River any other way. — Conor Mihell

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the KIds are alrIghtWhen Canoe & Kayak asked me to reflect on waterfall running today, nearly 34 years after my article “Waterfalls: Forbidden Fruit or Calculated Risk” introduced readers of Canoe magazine to the subject, these words leapt immediately to mind: Controversial at best and irresponsible or reckless at worst. . . . An extreme deviation from sound boating practices.

Those aren’t my words. They are part of the disclaimer that Canoe’s then-editor, John viehman, appended to “Forbidden Fruit” when, after sitting on the story formore than a year, he finally published it in February 1979. The subject of waterfalls was then so sensitive that I never even mentioned to John that we had long since run Great Falls of the Potomac, the iconic drop that Davey Hearn descends with great style in the photograph on the facing page.

And could we even imagine back then the astounding feats that evan Garcia, Rafa Ortiz, Tyler Bradt, and others are accomplishing today? Perhaps, in our fantasies. There was one other thing I did not mention to the staff at Canoe, or to anyone else to this day. In my wife Laura’s schematic illustration published with the 1979 article, the rock formation symbols are those of niagara Falls.

— By Wick Walker

DOn WATKInS

DAveY HeARn

THe SPOuT, POTOmAC RIveR, vIRGInIA, 1985mIKe LeeDS

RAFA ORTIZ

PALOuSe FALLS, WASHInGTOn, 2012

Read Wick Walker’s 1979 waterfall running treatise at canoekayak.com/forbiddenfruit