“Klien did it,” he said quietly. “Jay jumped and managed to survive.” As if that was any excuse. Klien had jumped against all advice when hurricane Fred had crossed the Florida coast. He had ended up with multiple fractures, a collapsed lung, and the ridicule of nearly everyone who followed storm jumping. When they finally fished him out of the Gulf all he was concerned about was if his stupid camera was still intact. His computer indicated that he’d gotten just a thousand meters into the storm before Fred ripped most of his jump gear away, smashed him around for long agonizing minutes, and finally plunged him into the surf where he was beaten by flotsam and jetsam for half the night. Jay had been an idiot for making the attempt, everybody knew that, and foolishly lucky to have survived.
Only, I wondered, why was the idea so deliciously appealing when coming from Jerry? Probably because the idea of mastering the might of a full-fledged hurricane would be the pinnacle of storm jumping: the equivalent of climbing Mount Everest for the first time. And Jerry would be the best sherpa guide anyone could hope for.
He tossed a twig into the fire and watched the flame flare into brief life. “I think we can work out most of the techniques for doing it safely. It’s just a matter of planning things out in detail and having the right equipment. Well, you sleep on it and let me know if you want in on it.”
“You really are going to do this, aren’t you?” I asked when the embers were just a cherry glow and the last of the tea was gone.
“Yes,” he replied. “And you’re going to go with me,” he replied, turned over in his sleeping bag and went to sleep.
“No, I won’t,” I said testily to his back. ‘You are one insane bastard. I won’t be a party to your suicide.” There, I thought, that should end the discussion.
Jerry never referred to his crazy idea the rest of the trip, although it was never very far from my mind. The excitement of jumping into a major hurricane drew me on the one hand, while the danger that it posed to my life and limb pushed me away. The idea thrashed back and forth within my thoughts for days after. Not that I had any real control over the situation. Jerry knew I would come around to his way of thinking, no matter what I said.
Finally I could stand his silence no longer. I called him up to tell him that in no way was I going to go along with his crazy idea… I ended up flying to Florida to try out some of his ideas in one of the “small” tropical squalls. One jump with Jerry’s proposed equipment and I was hooked. Nothing was going to keep me away when Jerry made his assault on the big one.
Over the next year Jerry and I painstakingly worked out the ways we could harness a hurricane’s power to our advantage. In a seemingly endless succession of jumps into nightmarishly bad weathers we discovered what worked and what didn’t. The failures were the really scary parts for both of us, especially the ones that we almost didn’t survive. By the time we had completed our research we had earned a reputation in the jump community for being reckless, crazy, and stupid; which is quite an honorific in that brotherhood.
A big change in our plans came when another spring came around and we decided to do the Youghiogheny River. Every decent white water enthusiast on the east coast loves the Youghiogheny River, the lower Youg, that is, from the easy stairstep riffles at the top, just below Ohiopyle Falls, to the roaring Class V and VI rapids down toward the bottom. We planned to start our run at the Loop takeout, right at the top of the thirteen-kilometer drop down to Brunner Run. Once you get under the bridge below the Loop you have to keep going because the river drops five meters per kilometer, about sixty for the whole run, which builds up a hell of a roaring sheet of water to ride.
Another kayak had just put in when we got to the edge of the stream and was paddling upstream to get into a decent position for a solo run. I waved my arm to signal we should all make the run together, wondering if the other guy would be able to keep up with us as the difficulty level increased down below. The fact that he had put in at the Loop told us that he wasn’t a raw beginner, the kind whose courage would fade when he hit anything above a Class III rapid. He waved back with his paddle, backed until we were in the water and then took off like a shot right through the gap and under the bridge, making a nice tight stem turn with the main flow.
He was riding the hydraulic at Dimple Rock when I shot the chute, letting me lead Jerry and him through Swimmer’s hole and down the Cucumber, a rapidly accelerating stairstep of rough waters that starts as Class III and ends with a Class IV bone-shaker. By the time we reached the Bottle I had gotten a measure of our companion; reckless, daring, and a little crazy. In other words, a normal white water enthusiast. Jerry went through the Bottle of Wine in his normally cautious fashion, not sacrificing speed for safety, but not taking chances either. Then Jerry and I waited upended in the smooth hydraulic below the Bottle when the other guy came through hell-bent for leather, zipping by us in an effort to be the first to hit River’s End.
The End isn’t my favorite piece of the river. Right at the top of the passage through the mass of rocks there’s a double hydraulic that gives a great ride, but only if you keep your speed up. Slow down and the second backwash will drag you in and down, giving you a double dose of the wet lung disease as it yanks you out into the current. Once you are past that hazard, and hurtling along at a good clip, you enter the Canyon. The huge boulders rearing up on either side always give me a claustrophobic feeling while I’m twisting and turning to stay in the channel. Drifting just a hair to either side of the Canyon means that the current will smack you against one of the huge rocks. If that happens, and you don’t twist in time, the water pressure can pin you there, holding your kayak flat against the rock face with tons and tons of water pouring over you. As if that wasn’t dangerous enough, the bottom of the End opens up on a cascading series of haystack hydraulics, upwellings that can throw you into next Wednesday if you aren’t careful. I usually try to go around them and stay close to Whale Rock where there’s a slight eddy current. Jerry takes an even more deliberate course over the first one and around the next two.
When I finally worked my way to the bottom and made the swing at the rocks I had the shock of my life. Our erstwhile companion was riding upright on the last of the hydraulics, calm as you please. “Race you guys to the take out,” he yelled in a feminine voice. The high-pitched voice told me that the guy was just a damned reckless kid!
There was no way I was going to let some hot dog kid beat me on my river! I turned the kayak with a vicious sweep of my paddle, did a rollover to refresh myself, and waited for the kid to come abreast. When he shot by me, using the impetus of the water gushing out of the End to give him an extra boost I realized my mistake: I had to build up speed from nearly a dead stall while he was gaining speed with every sweep of his paddle. The kid was really good! Jerry was two strokes and three lengths ahead of me in pursuit by the time I got my ass in gear.
By the time we reached School-house the kid was tens of meters ahead of me and skipped though the washboard without missing a beat. Jerry gained a little on the flat water to Laurel Run and lost some when the kid took the dangerous, but faster route down the Stairstep; something only daredevils or damn fools usually attempt. The three of us hit the Brunner Run rapid side by side and dueled down the riffles, Jerry leaning to caution, me finding a middle course, and our opponent taking chances with every hazard. I managed to cut across at the bottom of the riffles, where the water flattens out, and squeezed him off on the big rock to the right, forcing him to either hit the rock or follow. I swept around in a victory curl right at the takeout, just a few feet ahead of Jerry. No kid was going to show us up!