From the JacksonKayak.com page:<br /> <br /> July 12, 2005<br /> The Jackson's have arrived after a long drive from the Ottawa at the steps of the capital of the USA. In this beautiful city lies a gem of a river called the Potomac. Just upstream from the Capital about 12 miles is where you will find the Great Falls of the Potomac. The whole river drops about 60-80 feet in a few hundred yards. The beautiful thing about the Potomac is the size of the river and the fact that it never gets too high or too low. Although it is a natural flow river, it services such a large drainage area that the record low was 500 cfs, more than enough to still run the falls. Today it is running at about 20,000 cfs or so (my guess) and the options are endless for class V water to run. I woke this morning planning on paddling with Danny Stock (star of Strokes and Concepts DVD, and long time friend), Louis Geltman, and Nec Poberaj. Louis and Nec bagged and it was just Danny and I. I have one Rocker and one Super Hero. Danny chose the Super Hero and I the Rocker, with the plan to switch out. Our plan was to run the first drop of the Fish Ladder a few times and then run the Back Canyon. For those of you who aren't familiar with Great Falls, allow me to explain...<br /> The put-in is at Great Falls Park in Maryland above a low head dam (8 feet tall) with a nice warm up lake above it. The dam is used to divert water into the pumping station where Washington, DC gets its drinking water. Once you warm up you can boof the dam just about anywhere (except the few places with rocks at the bottom). The dam is 1/4 mile wide! Then you have lots of choices, and depending upon the water level some choices are better than others. Today the choices were to run the normal Fish Ladder which is 5 slides that circumvent the Falls and create a wonderful series of drops with a hole at the bottom of 4 of them. The 1st Slide is a good warm up one with the hole being fairly easy to punch, and a little space before the next drop. Kristine came down with the camera to shoot us showing off the hole punching ability of the Super Hero and Rocker. Not only were we able to get the bow over the hole and carry out momentum downstream, we were able to launch into the air and land 10 feet below the hole! We were having so much fun with this drop that we did it about 5 times. Next in line is a class 2 rapid that leads into the second slide only about 50 yards downstream. The second slide starts testing your boat control a little more with a bigger hole and recirculating eddies on both sides ready to catch anybody not able to put their bow on top or keep their boats straight. IMMEDIATELY after you get through the second drop the river splits in two; the left goes through the rest of the Fish Ladder and the right is the Back Canyon. 95% of the people in the Fish Ladder stay in the fish ladder instead of doing the back canyon. However a recent log jam that was broken out resulted in one single log in the fish ladder between the 3rd and 4th slides that is in a precarious position for anyone not maintaining control after the 3rd slide. It also points upriver ready to catch any swimmer (swimming the fish ladder is a really bad idea anyhow). If you stay left and do the fish ladder you will run the third slide right under a walking bridge (usually with spectators) and hit a hard reactionary on your right to avoid a full on hole on your left that is up against a wall. The reactionary lifts you up and drops you on the left side of the channel making a left to right move to hit the entry of the 4th slide in good position. With the log, stay left, boof the rock protecting the entryway and make your way around the second rock. The 4 slide is intense on the way down, especially now that at the bottom a tree that is the size of a Washington State Redwood is dead center at the bottom of the drop. The line is to stay left and aim for the crazy splashing water that looks like one peton rock after another, however it is good to go. Then catch the eddy on the left and ferry under the tree on the most downstream side of it, and peel out into the next drop around the corner that leads you into the final slide that puts you back in the main river. The best place to eddy out is on the right side right above the 5th slide and you can see the looming hole at the bottom. I have never been surfed in this hole and never intend to! However it requires a decent line on the right or left of it to shoot through consistently. There are two main ways to do the 5th slide. The normal way is to peel out of the eddy and go straight down hitting the corner of the hole with right angle and a boof stroke to carry as much of the 30 miles per hour of speed you have through the hole. The cool way is to boof the 6 foot pourover on the left at the lead in, catching the eddy behind it and peeling out into the middle of the slide and still making the final move at the bottom. Today Danny and I boofed into the pourover and he said, &quot;The water is really high and you won't have to peel out very hard to get right at the bottom.&quot; We were both struggling to maintain our position in the boily eddy below the pourover in the middle of the whole drop and I said, &quot;OK, you go first and show me.&quot; and he started to peel out a little lower than I would expect and got rejected by the boil on the eddyline and said, &quot;wow, the boils are bigger than I expected&quot;. At this point we were both thinking, &quot;wouldn't it have been easier to just run the drop like a normal person?&quot; but there we were and the move was not going to get any easier by waiting to I took off, made the peel out high by the pourover, peeling out into water that is going about 20 miles per hour at that point, and I had enough time to ride my draw all of the way into the hole, nailing my line where I wanted it and cleanly shooting through into the eddy. Danny was right behind me and had an identical line. The last drop always is interesting because if you are scared of the hole and push too hard right you will bounce off of the wall back into the hole, or worse peton the retaining wall just under the water, hurt yourself, and then bounce back into the hole for a beating (like Gilbert Rocha in the Pre-World Extreme Championships in 1996). <br /> The other line that Danny and I took just upstream of there is the Back Canyon. The photos don't really do it justice. After running the 1st and 2nd slides we eddied out and had Kristine hike down to the eddy at the bottom of the Back Canyon. She is still about 30 feet above the river where she is taking these photos. We scouted the run to make sure nothing had washed into it (this drop is where I had my closest brush with death in 1996 when testing the Kinetic prototype with Sam Drevo, pin under a log, swim, broken ribs, etc.). I am careful to check familiar drops for new obsticles now. It was good to go so Danny and I got in the water (after I waved and blew a kiss to Kristine way downhill and downstream). From where we started we would have to do a ferry accross a wave (we were downstream of the entry drop of the back canyon) and be pointed upstream or straight accross to boof into the drop from the side. I made the boof OK and the water at the landing was going from my right to left really fast pulling my bow left hard causing me to do a brace on the right, eating some valuable time needed to get to river right for the second drop in an 8 foot wide crack with a hole on the left and a reactionary on the right. I braced right and pulled through on the right stroke, then did a hard left sweep to get my boat turned to the right wall where there is a flake that is one boat width wide that if on it can carry you clear of the worse hole on the canyon, but puts you on top of a very peaky boil line that will either drop you left into a big reactionary or right into a shallow but clean drop with a reactionary on the right. Luis Geltman tells his story of hitting the left reactionary and not bracing into it enough flipping and tearing his shoulders and chest up, something about contusions, black and blue over his whole front side and not wanting to do that again (we were drinking beer at Black's bar last night and I didn't hear the whole thing.). Well I got over the boils to fall left and managed to guide my Rocker in between the two reactionaries, leaving one relatively non-threatening hole left to punch and then catch the eddy where Kristine was taking photos. The hardest part of the drop is doing an attainment to catch a wave, and to enter the rapid in a very non- traditional way, from below and from the side to boof into a rapid that can't be broken into parts, but is a top to bottom run. So it is mentally a challenging peel out, especially if you haven't done it before or in a long time.<br /> <br /> We got to the bottom of the 5th slide successfully and checked out Portage hole (a good playboating spot) did a couple of enders in our Super Hero and Rocker, and then paddled back accross the Fish Ladder into &quot;Sandy Beach&quot;; an inlet that has a sandy beach and is the place most people put in at to run Mather Gorge (below Great Falls). It is hot and humid in DC so Danny and I took our gear off and spent 15 minutes cooling off, swimming around in the 75 degree water before walking back to the car. Yes, you can do all of this and simply walk back to the car, cool!<br /> <br /> Now, I have described only one part of Great Falls, at one level, the Fish Ladder and Back Canyon. These are about 1000 cfs out of the 20,000 cfs in the river. Start back at the low head dam, boof it, then go straight down the middle of the river and you will find yourself in class 2-4 rapids before the world drops out in front of you. You have three major choices: Run the Maryland side (river left), run the Middle Lines, or Run the Virginia side (river right). At today's level the two intelligent choices are Maryland (hard left at Pummel, then left of Charlies, and then down the meat at Horseshoe or far left on an easy creek line) The traditional line is the Center line which consists of &quot;Grace Under Pressure&quot; (I named that rapid back in 1993), an un-named class 3+ into the Fingers, a 20 foot waterfall with several lines of varying difficulty. Out of towners get confused and lost by the time they get to the fingers and unfortunately risk going down Subway or Twist and Shout if they haven't carefully scouted the lead in and the slot to take at the bottom drop. It is not like a normal river since it is SO wide with many look alike lead-ins. I watched Arndt Schaeflein from Germany (an awesome creekboater) run off of the fingers 10 feet too far right and land on a rock at the bottom that is 4 feet out of the water and bend his boat in half. Another kid did the same thing but landed sideways and broke parts of his body (I don't remember which ones, but I think his back was one of them). With that said, I let my kids run it, and Dane has run it numerous times, and certainly knows where to go. Emily hasn't run it yet but would love it. <br /> <br /> As the water drops there is the standard Maryland or Virginia sides with the Spout on the Virginia side being a 25 footer that is sweet! Both sides are unbelievable with many various sublines in each side allowing you to challenge yourself as much or little as you want. The kicker on the Maryland side is Charlie's Hole. Unfortunately known more recently because Scott Bristow went into it by accident and was never seen again. (a rock just downstream backs it up and the green water goes super deep, likely under that rock.) Charlie's Hole is not to be run by anyone considering swimming as an option in the case of a very hard surf in an extremely hard hole to get out of. I stopped playing games with that drop after Scott's death there, no longer assuming that &quot;you can always swim out&quot;. One game, however, that I thought was quite cool, back in 1988 was with Corran Addison. <br /> <br /> First off, Charlie's Hole is a long V-shaped slide at about a 45 degree angle that carries alot of water in it and it freefalls for about 4 feet into a vertical hole with an overhanging wall on the right and a 45 degree wall on the left with the eddy feeding hard back into the hole. The green water is so thick and fast and vertical that it punches a big hole in the river and surfs you underwater for at least part of your surf, if you should be so unlucky to be there. Well, the green water looked like it went so deep so fast that i figured that it made an eddyling under water just like on top of the water. My idea was to have Corran line up on the eddyline below the hole and wait for me. I wasn't going to tell him what I was going to do. My idea was to plug my Dancer deep, following the green water about 10 feet under water but with a slight left hand angle and be on the left draw to pull my boat accross the eddyline while 10 feet under water, causing me to pop up in the eddy on the other side of Corran. Well, without hesitation I did my standard catch the little hole at the top of the slide and do a spin in it, then I lined up on the left of the slide letting my bow drop and having just a hint of left hand angle, and once my whole body was under and the force of the water was on my back, I reached for the left draw and WHAM; it powerflipped me at the bottom of the river and raked my right hand accross the rock at the bottom and before I knew it I was rolling up, and was on the other side of Corran! Cool! I put my hand up in the air for a fist pump (I was psyched) and blood was already running down my arm. I still have scars on three places on each finger (one on each knuckle). Corran was impressed but not enough to try it. <br /> <br /> Yes, I can go on and on about the Great Falls of the Potomac, like the time I ran it solo at 100,000 cfs, or all of the extreme races we have had on it, etc. I am happy to be here!<br /> <br /> Enjoy the photos and come check out this river some time!<br /> :) EJ <br />

From Bill Kirby:<br /> <br /> BTW, the date for the first falls run on the page is wrong, and Sue Taft got it wrong in her book, as I informed her last year at a Potomac Conservancy benefit in DC. Tommy’s Valley Mill web site says 1976. Also, I was standing looking at the Falls in the summer of 1976, working as a Park Ranger, when Wick walked up to me and told me he and Tommy had just run it a few days prior. Running the falls was considered illegal at that time, without a solid legal foundation as it turned out, and we all kept it under our hats for fear of stirring up a lot of trouble. That included not informing my own bosses in the NPS. Gradually the news got out to many boaters, though, and the NPS lack of jurisdiction over the river itself became apparent, i.e. the NPS could bar putting onto the river from their land but not any activities on the river itself. The Maryland DNR, which does have jurisdiction, had no presence on the river at all.<br /> <br /> So, every day for two years I walked around the falls, paddled above and below the falls, flew over the falls in helicopters, etc., and ran through a thousand lines in my mind. Finally, in 78 fellow Park Ranger Steve McConaughy called me early in the morning and said “Let’s run the Falls”. It just felt right, so we did it before work. I was one grinning Park Ranger the rest of that day, I can tell you. The following weekend I went down to the Gauley and, unlike Wick and Tommy, I told everyone who was moving slow enough to hear me all about it.<br /> <br /> I claim some responsibility for making running the Falls the big deal it is today, and here’s why: When word got around that Wick and Tommy ran it, most people said to themselves “Well, that’s Wick and Tommy, that doesn’t mean I want to try it.” When people heard that I had done it people said “Well, hell, if Kirby can do it, it can’t be that bad,” and the gates were opened.<br /> <br /> Thanks for all the work of keeping your river pages up to date. They’re a terrific resource.<br /> <br /> Bill Kirby<br />

From Swimmer on Boatertalk:<br /> Re: Bored today, please bear with me... Swimmer New <br /> Re: Which drop is this pencil sharpener of which you speak.... Bradley New <br /> Date: Aug 25 2004, 19:40 GMT <br /> From: Swimmer <br /> <br /> Pencil Sharpner is on the Maryland side, river left of Charlie's Hole, almost against the bank. <br /> <br /> and yes Middle Finger of Fate drops you on stone. I've never ran the MFF, but have seen video of a guy totally biting it there. He wasn't moving after he landed. <br /> <br /> Steve <br /> <br />

From Boatertalk:<br /> Date: Aug 25 2004, 18:57 GMT <br /> From: Swimmer <br /> <br /> There are many more than three lines at Great Falls, all of them level dependent. As a man who goes by the name of Snowwrestler has said, .1 on the LF guage can cause over a foot of difference in the actual line of choice for that day. I am sure you can realize that more water equals more push, meatier holes, ect ect ect. <br /> <br /> You need class V skills for the most part. Some of the lines at some of the levels are class III moves, but should something go wrong, and you don't have the ability to self preserve..well...you're screwed in a bad way. For example...Pencil Sharpner. You come through a little chute with a side current hitting you as you emerge through the slot. You're trying to line up to slide off a broken shelf. If you don't anticipate and prepare for that side current, it'll shove you off line and you drop into a crack beside the aforementioned slot which is just about as ugly and rescue impossible as I've seen. The drop called Pummel has a cave behind the curtain. Get worked in the hole, may wash into the cave. Horseshoe delivers a great beat down. The Spout has broken more than it's share of ankles. Middle Finger of Fate has broken ribs and given concussions....the list goes on. <br /> <br /> For comparison down south...Can be tight like Daddy's Creek, can get vertical like Tellico. I've dropped the bottom half of Bald River Falls and it was nothing like Great Falls. Uuuhhmm........the tight section of the Doe, along through Body Snatcher, that area can be similar... It's just about making lines, hitting your boofs, sticking the landings. Level dependent. Can be a low water run with no push, or can be a scream fest shoving you everywhere you wanna be. <br /> <br /> Now that I've said exaclty nothing really helpful after all that....my boy's awake. <br /> <br /> Ciao' <br /> Steve

Last checked the top of the fishladder was blocked by a massive strainer.