I was in the first group to descend Black Canyon. We did it from Gunnison all the way to the confluence with the North Fork before the dams were put in, and therefore, our group was and probably will be the only group to have done the descent it's whole length. It made me absolutely sick to see them dam up that river. We also had the only descent of the Lake fork before the bottom half of it was flooded out by Blue Mesa Reservoir. The river was wild back then, and in the spring most of those "boulder clogged" rapids were completely submerged, but there were two of them which we walked anyway. When you see a bank to bank whirlpool, you know it's time to walk. On one of them we literally technical climbed with ropes and petons because the keeper hole went shear wall to shear wall. That was no easy task as we had to line our heavy, extremely high volume fiberglass boats along the cliff face with us. If we had have put them in the water, we'd have never seen them again. By the time we reached the confluence with the North fork just outside of Hotchkiss those boats had duct tape and hastily fashioned fiberglass patches then original fiberglass. We were a pretty beat up and exhausted lot, but we knew we had a run which would never be repeated since work was scheduled to begin the following year, with drilling and blasting at Morrow Point and further upriver for the future Blue Mesa Reservoir. The building of those three dams was tragic for reasons other than destroying white water. There were a lot of really crazy fossils in the pre-cambrian shales along the river, and in addition they drowned out some very interesting cliff dwellings and granaries only slightly smaller than those at Mesa Verde, and most of them were untouched since ancient times. I remember climbing up to one and finding (but leaving untouched) a sandel made of some sort of plant fiber, and a whole lot of worked flint pieces of various sorts, as well as small corn cobs and husks in one of the granaries. The corn cobs had clearly been there for a very long time, and were markedly smaller than the cobs of our modern corn. Many of the cobs had been thoroughly nawed by rodents, and there was no grain left to be seen anywhere, but there were still some cobs which remained untouched. There were also some truly gargantuan trout in there which would have shattered any existing world record. Some were nearly as long as our boats. One evening as we were making camp, we watched in stunned amazement as one simply inhaled a beaver without any problem. In the pools where these monsters lived, there were no small, medium, or what would normally be considered to be large trout. I assume they'd all been consumed by the big boys. I don't know what happened to them, but I know they didn't survive the building of the dams. If they had have, the Gunnison River would have produced the world record trout. On the other hand, to land one would have required tackle designed to catch heavy ocean going fish such as bluefin tuna and big marlin. I have no doubt that some of those trout would have run 500 lbs. The water down in the canyon was pretty clear before the dams went in, and they didn't have the algae growing in the water as the river has now. It looked more like the Taylor river before it reaches ranch country, though much deeper. We lost a lot when they drown that canyon, and I don't think many people know to this day how much was lost. I am the last person of our party left alive, and since I can't reminisce with my paddling partners, I hope you'll forgive my ramblings. All there are of that two week long run are my memories. We didn't have GoPro's back then. Super 8 was the video format back then, and none of us could afford that. We did take two cameras, but one was lost in a capsize, and the other got water in it when a rock damaged the hull and dry storage flotation bag of another. That bag also had some of our food in it, and we ended up eating a satisfying (not) amount of grit in our rice and oats. We eventually had to discard part of it, but we were far from going hungry. Several of us knew what plants in the area were edible, and in addition we were able to catch some very nice cutthroat trout further down river to supplement out what we had left. At that time, they had not begun stocking rainbow trout, and the native cuts were plentiful and very tasty. They had the same orange flesh that salmon have, and had a flavour closer to that than to the flavour of a rainbow or brown trout. These days you can't find a cutthroat trout anywhere on the Gunnison. The world changes. Humans can't seem to resist messing around with nature.

That last guy is quite the poet haha I love it!

This video should have millions of views!

beautiful video .It shows real essence of kayaking.

Magnificent the landscapes, huge the rivers and their fast ones! Some truly terrifying passages! ;-)

amazing video

Similar situation running Tellico at flood stage, but he is right it makes for more exciting paddling.

Wait ! It will become a must viewed soon !

who needs space exploration when you can explore space

great kayaking stories

All Thumbs Up!!!

The royal Flush has my vote. Excellent bit of video

help us get there miss!

22:36 that is pure badass.

Vote starts on November 1st on kayak session mag website

This is awesome!!! My goal is to some day be this good. XD

song at 8:10 awolnation-sail and at18:50 maybeshewill-he films the clouds pt. 2

Gut wrenching video! Whom do I contact about using some video clips for my music video? Is it possible?

what is this song at 8:10 ? also the tune at 18:50 ?

Holy shit!

whats that song in Black canyon??????

12:32...... wow thats some brass balls :-0

i think that god is proud of you

1:32 “when is enough?...” when you die?

13:08

What song at 27:30 approx.??

in 8:00

that's not how you say portage and 2 km isn't very long.

song at 14:40?

10:35 :O

wats da song @ 10:54 ?

Sven

the gread kayaking video

Ouf...

Song at 5:37

Lol a totally selfish obsession has something to do with real life? Yeesh. Sell those energy drinks!