Stikine training in Tumwater Canyon

Sam Grafton put together an edit showcasing his ongoing Site Zed training.


Get ready to get sick to your stomach as Sam takes you on a POV ride down Tumwater Canyon, top to bottom, at over 10,000 cfs.




Early Season Tumwater Edit from Sam Grafton on Vimeo.

Video - Sam Grafton runs Sunset Falls

Imagine a peaceful toboggan ride with your friends on a sunny afternoon. Now imagine instead of a sunny, snow filled slope to toboggan down, you have a 275 foot ramp of death and destruction, and none of your friends want to have anything to do with said death ramp. Now you have Sunset Falls in Washington state.

Sunset Falls is the largest and the final stage of the three major waterfalls on the South Fork of the Skykomish River. The cascading drop falls about a 100 vertical feet over a 275 foot long, sloping granite chute of raw power.

Al Fausett ran Sunset Falls back in 1926 in a 30 foot canoe. They don't grow balls this big these days. Apparently Al used to charge admission to watch him do stunts like this as a means of passive income, charging a  crowd of around 3000 who gathered to watch the show.

Sunset Falls was run by Rob McKibbin back in October of 2008 (while on a lunch break from work). After cracking a couple ribs, he lost a paddle midway down the final chute and was forcibly ejected from his boat. Rob tried to pull himself back into his boat, but was unable to do so.

Then in April of 2010, Tyler Bradt stepped up to the plate. Despite running the slide on his head and breaking his paddle, Tyler made the first successful kayak descent of Sunset Falls.

Then, in comes Sam Grafton. Sam scouted and thought he saw his line. Then destroyed it. Sam has an ability to stay out of holes and hydraulics that is not natural. I have no idea what kind of a deal Sam made with the Devil, or Poseidon, but it goes contrary to the same deal that Rob made. While Rob is blessed with the ability to fight out of holes no one should be allowed to exit, Sam never even touches them.

I wasn't able to be there on the day that Sam ran the waterfall, but I was able to get my hands on the footage for a little bit of editing. So sit back and get ready to squeeze out your adrenal glands.

Video: Tumwater quicky

Just a fun weekend in Leavenworth. Feels good to be back in a kayak.

Cooperfest!

The Cooper River - WA

Sunshine, warm water, friendly locals and fun drops.

 

The Cooper is a fun class IV creek right outside of Cle Elum, WA. It's also one of the few places in Washington where you can creek in a shorty or a paddle jacket and one of the last creeks to run into the summer/fall season.

Adam Ales and I drove up over the pass for the day, to see what was happening in Cle Elum, I didn't know that I would be spending the weekend at Cooperfest 12'!

We thought we would start the weekend off right with a nice flat tire...

The Cooper starts off with an awesome slide and then it just turns up the volume and shoots you out the other end.

Entrance Slide:

Phil lines up for the next ledge immediately downstream.














A couple fun rapids and then you're in the pool above S-Turn, one of the larger drops on the river.



S-Turn has a cool entrance move: starting middle with right angle you can boof onto a big pillow and then ride out a huge brace to the finish line.

There is a super fun boof right above the last ledge in Norm’s Resort.





Norm’s Resort always has vacancies and would love to valet your creeker for you.

You come to the very end of the run, feeling happy and satisfied. You see locals sunbathing on the sandstone rocks creating the river left wall. From the pools above Wall of Voodoo, if you’re fortunate, you get to hear the “oooooohhh’s” and “ OHHHHHHHHHHH’s!!” of the crowd that always forms around carnage.

Good and bad lines in Wall of Voodoo:

Phil Kast likes to get rowdy.

Rob drops in to help out.

Then Leif cleans house:

 




 
Just two dudes make'n out. No big thing.

 

 

There's shuttle rigs, and then there's shuttle rigs...


Stay classy Seattle.