# Fall Cataract Canyon Video. Rated M... Kinda.



## yardsells (Jul 14, 2014)

If anyone is bored, here is our fall cat trip video. I think it was around 4k below the confluence.
Early October trip. Perfect weather.


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## B4otter (Apr 20, 2009)

I've done 6 or 7 "Septober" trips in last 8 years and weather has always been excellent (last week of September into first/second week of October). In 2019 we did have 40 mph wind for the drops, we made it down to camp around Waterhole from Brown Betty but it was one of those "row like crazy in the lulls, keep your oars in the water in the gales" situations. Weird. We listened to the weather that evening - big cold front incoming - and got up and git in the morning, made North Wash by 1:00 (motoring with no wind).
That big moss-covered rock on the right when you find the slot for the Gut is a marker: covered above 5k, shows at 4 with the pourover coming off it (it's in your video), and top is dry at 3k. Below that you look up at it when you go by, but I have old 8 mm. film of Stan Hollister running it in low 2000s in late October 1979 in a 37' without side tubes. He did the classic turnaround - a move I never mastered (or was too scared to try with all that rubber) - and slid the right tube over the moss and into the slot. Thing of beauty...


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## tanderson (Mar 26, 2010)

I really like the sound of old 8mm footage. Any way to digitize it?


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## tBatt (May 18, 2020)

Nice! We ran a full moon scorcher last week of July/First week of August. Four days, no motors. Got to the confluence around 4:30 am on the second day of floating. 4800 at the confluence. We ran just right of Big Mossy in BD3 as opposed to your left line. B4otter, which line do you run at these levels?

Edit to add a few photos. Hope it's not too much of a threadjack.


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## B4otter (Apr 20, 2009)

Blasphemy. But next time you run snoutie and have genset along I'll bring projector, we can hang a sheet and have movie night...


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## JamMasterJame (Mar 22, 2013)

I've been looking at one of those Lehr Propane outboards.... How did it work?


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## tBatt (May 18, 2020)

^^^ Having spent a lot of the early winter researching outboards, the buzz collective will tell you to get a Tohatsu or Mercury (same engine, different decals) Sailpro LPG. Skip the Lehr.


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## yardsells (Jul 14, 2014)

tBatt said:


> Nice! We ran a full moon scorcher last week of July/First week of August. Four days, no motors. Got to the confluence around 4:30 am on the second day of floating. 4800 at the confluence. We ran just right of Big Mossy in BD3 as opposed to your left line. B4otter, which line do you run at these levels?
> 
> Edit to add a few photos. Hope it's not too much of a threadjack.
> 
> ...


Some nice rigs ya got there.


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## Deagol (Jun 16, 2017)

that is one huge flotilla

nice video, btw


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## yardsells (Jul 14, 2014)

Thanks Deagol.


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## B4otter (Apr 20, 2009)

Right of Big Mossy gets boney @4k, pinball/mine field after that. The left slot is always there, down to 1700 (lowest I've ever seen it, wouldn't want to take a snout down there at that level...).

Above 6k the right run comes out, it's easier to see but the right eddy can be tough to time correctly and A LOT of water going back upstream there. You need to be on the fence, and just break out of the tail of the eddy over "home base" (barely submerged flat rock at the top right, bad baseball analogy but that's what it's always been called). If you touch home base and just line up to take the big right lateral off your right bow you don't have to take a stroke, just keep pointed downstream and you'll squirt out the bottom clean as a whistle...

Low water Cataract is really good to learn to read water on. The "just left of Niagara" line in the video is viable at different levels, there is also an "all the way right" slot there (similar to Skull in Westwater). "Conventional Wisdom" is to run it pulling right just after the big rock on the left, it's a nice tuck in there move I prefer (usually). Sets you up nicely for the tailwaves of 2, which are great fun.

I've also seen an S-rig lose its motor at the bottom of BD1 and watched swimmers go over Niagara at 65k+ - they were down there for a solid 30 count, one said he touched a sandy bottom (not sure I believe it but he had no reason to make it up... eyes big as saucers). The boatman on the motor told the pax to jump when he lost motor and they were deadheading into 2, there were 12 swimmers and two who stayed with the boat, incl. the boatman. It didn't flip in 2 or 3... Go figger.


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## Andy H. (Oct 13, 2003)

Deagol said:


> that is one huge flotilla
> 
> nice video, btw


A half acre of hypalon!


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## MNichols (Nov 20, 2015)

JamMasterJame said:


> I've been looking at one of those Lehr Propane outboards.... How did it work?


Skip the Lehr, Tohatsu Sail Pro. There was a rather lengthy discussion on this a while back.


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## MNichols (Nov 20, 2015)

And another outstanding trip and video !! Thanks for sharing buddy.


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## yardsells (Jul 14, 2014)

MNichols said:


> And another outstanding trip and video !! Thanks for sharing buddy.


Thanks man.


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## yardsells (Jul 14, 2014)

B4otter said:


> Blasphemy. But next time you run snoutie and have genset along I'll bring projector, we can hang a sheet and have movie night...


Uh... sold. I'll bring the popcorn.


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## tBatt (May 18, 2020)

B4otter said:


> Blasphemy. But next time you run snoutie and have genset along I'll bring projector, we can hang a sheet and have movie night...


Greg W is looking to unload a 2-1/2 tube military surplus rig for $1300 if you want one of your own. Maybe he can throw one of his tohatsus in the deal, too.



yardsells said:


> Some nice rigs ya got there.


Thanks, likewise! The darker Avon spent it's working years on the Upper Gauley. The lighter one was on Alpine Canyon of the snake. White NRS rig is a U of U rental.


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## yardsells (Jul 14, 2014)

tBatt said:


> Greg W is looking to unload a 2-1/2 tube military surplus rig for $1300 if you want one of your own. Maybe he can throw one of his tohatsus in the deal, too.


That's Pauly's old rig ain't it? Steel frame?
If I know GW, he'll choke if he heard you say "throwing in a motor" .


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## theBoatPeople (Jun 19, 2012)

thank u! i loved watching this, bringing back incredible memories of adventure. the sign hardly changed since 1978 LOL? our guides told us the night
stars were NOT great, there was a moon up somewhere, they could tell. but the passengers never saw anything like it. the star view was so clear 
you could see/tell depth in the galaxy/stars. it looked like you could start climbing up the stars like a climbing wall.








above i took 1978 about end of june, from raft in the water.
below is a screenshot from your video. if i'm not supposed to screenshot your video (DMCA) please let me or moderator know to remove. 
TBP Admin.


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## B4otter (Apr 20, 2009)

Same sign, different location. It used to live river right just above what we called "Fly Camp" (because of the insects) but after the high water years in '83 and '84 ('84 was actually higher, few around then, fewer remember...) the NPS relocated to its current location on river left a mile or so upstream.


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## MNichols (Nov 20, 2015)

B4otter said:


> ('84 was actually higher, few around then, fewer remember...) the NPS relocated to its current location on river left a mile or so upstream.


I was around then, 100K cfs, but I didn't actually run it at that level.. 

For your viewing pleasure





Flippin huge water..


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## tBatt (May 18, 2020)

Copy/Pasted from a Mountain Gazette article. Full article Attached below.



> Back at their “Bug Camp,” the rangers’ radio crackled. It was the Park Service’s rescue boat stationed down below the rapids. “Moki motorboat capsized in Big Drop Two and went through Satan’s Gut upside-down. May have been entangled in timber. Boat came apart. At least one injury. Broken leg. Assisting with rescue.” It had been about 15 minutes since they’d left.
> 
> Next morning comes early. We’re thinking of trying to set up a jet boat shuttle to take our people back to Moab. “Hey, it was a bad call, OK?” one might explain. “Who coulda known? Drinks are on the house and please don’t sue. Better than drowning any one of you, eh? Except maybe you, Martha. Just kidding.” That sort of thing Might work. Except, who then floats around the corner on a Gypsy wagon of a big rubber boat than Greg and five other susceptible late-night patrons of the Poplar Place bar, whom he has primed to row some dories through the biggest whitewater in North America flowing at historic high levels? They had launched after midnight and floated down in the dark. Such is the power of decision-making in bar environments.


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## B4otter (Apr 20, 2009)

Bug Camp is right at the bottom where the river kicks left, the shortest distance to the Dolls House trail. The big cottonwoods that used to be there have since fallen over. NPS appropriated it back then, today most of the jet boat haul-outs leave from there. Fly Camp was at the top of the Bottom, big sloping rock made for a nice eddy and easy carry to kitchen.

Thanks for this. I kept this issue of MG for years but finally loaned it out and it never came back... there's lot more to this story, and more stories to boot. Bego still around last I heard.

This was '83. In '84 the peak was actually bigger... Marshall, note the use of the term "...gaily painted eggshells..." !!! Not the first time, either...


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