The ADVENTURE Top 10: Best Waterfall Kayaking Runs in U.S. (with Video)

Posted by Mary Anne Potts on March 30, 2009
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Text by Andrea Minarcek. Read previous ADVENTURE Top 10 lists.

Last week, kayaker Pedro Olivia crushed the previous world-record run (108 feet high) and careened across the lip of Brazil’s 127-foot Salto Belo falls. Now, we’d never attempt anything that epic, but watching the stunning footage (below) of Olivia’s run did inspire us to want to break out our paddles and find a falls of our own.

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So we turned to filmmaker and pro kayaker Trip Jennings, one of our 2008 Adventurers of the Year, for a little guidance. The guy knows his stuff: He’s claimed first descents on rivers in North America, South America, and Asia. And in 2006, he nabbed a world-record paddle of his own by kayaking over a 101-foot waterfall in Oregon.

We enlisted Jennings to draft a Top 10 of the best waterfall runs in the U.S., right before he left for a paddling expedition in Bolivia. Stay tuned for what he finds there….  In the meantime, grab a paddle and get started on Jennings’s life-list paddle list.

“I chose these runs not because they are the baddest, tallest, or hardest,” he explains, “but because they are the classics that have been run hundreds and thousands of times. For aspiring Class V junkies, this is the list to print out, post above your bed, dream about at night, and check them off one by one—then post photos on Facebook when you run them. I rated them based on two very subjective factors: First how classic they are, and second, how much I like them.”  

See the ADVENTURE Top 10: Best Waterfall Kayaking Runs >>

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Related posts:

  1. The ADVENTURE Top 10: Best Waterfall Kayaking Runs in U.S. (with Video)
  2. Video: Kayaker Recalls Record-Breaking Waterfall Plunge
  3. Video: Kayak Over a Waterfall, Ulitmate Adventure Bucket List
  4. Kayaking Bolivia: Tracking Climate Change Where Carbon Emissions Are Low

Comments

  1. Dave C
    March 31, 2009, 2:46 pm

    Sprout Run sure is easy to get to from DC, but walking up a two lane highway after kayaking through rebar and drift wood doesn’t seem like the ideal afternoon paddle

  2. Vince
    March 31, 2009, 9:49 pm

    Celestial Falls is really scary, I wouldn’t advise kayaking it unless you are extremely experienced. Someone gets hurt every year it seams like. This is a really great top ten list about kayaking. You can post this to our site http://www.toptentopten.com/ and then link back to your site. We are looking for top ten lists and our users can track back to your site. The coolest feature is you can let other people vote on the rankings of your list.

  3. Trip Jennings
    April 1, 2009, 12:00 am

    Important note on Celestial Falls:
    It’s illegal to run. If you run it during the spring, summer or fall you will get in trouble. (or so I heard)

  4. Tudor Bran
    April 1, 2009, 8:04 am

    I’ve heard too that Celestial Falls is illegal to run.

  5. Mr. Hunting Scopes
    April 9, 2009, 10:04 am

    Wow that looks like a whole lot of fun. I cannot image feeling confident enough in your abilitys for such a task.

  6. car hire girona
    December 22, 2009, 3:50 am

    These guys are crazy! 127 foot..!!

  7. Edinburgh Accommodation
    August 2, 2010, 9:08 am

    i must say these guys are crazy they know very well that we could loss our life and i just consider that they have passion to do Waterfall Kayaking

  8. Car Hire Split
    January 31, 2011, 4:59 am

    after watching 172 hours no more outdoor sports for a day or 2 .

  9. rent a car Switzerland
    April 27, 2011, 9:00 am

    Wow that looks like a whole lot of fun. I cannot image feeling confident enough in your abilitys for such a task.

  10. Employee Incentive Program
    August 18, 2011, 7:22 am

    There’s no beauty in this world that can compare the beauty of nature. Gods perfect creation stuns with it’s beauty and I just can’t imagine why there are people who tries to destroy it’s beauty.

  11. Quản lý Nhân sự
    December 30, 2011, 3:31 am

    It’s illegal to run. If you run it during the spring, summer or fall you will get in trouble.