Extreme Kayaking Videos

A week from today we begin an 8 day, 130 mile canoe trip down Arkansas' Buffalo River. I've done about 8 multi-day paddle trips on rivers and lakes, but this will be the first that can have some serious rapids -- serious for canoes loaded with a week's worth of gear and food -- so I have some trepidation. To me, someone from the flat and calm waters of Illinois, rapids are best tackled in rubber rafts, so this trip is daunting.

I would never tackle huge rapids and waterfalls in a kayak as seen in this video of several extreme kayakers challenging waterfalls and rapids in Glenwood Canyon, Colorado, and the nearby area.



This historical footage below gives you a view of whitewater kayaking in the early 80s and shows the first sanctioned descent of the Niagara Gorge, North America's biggest rapids. 3000 tons of water spill over Niagara Falls every minute, and then that water continues down through Niagara Gorge. Three men and a woman kayak in this video, through rapids three times the water volume of the vaunted Lava Falls Rapid in the Grand Canyon. This video is from a TV broadcast in the 1980s. To skip the historical review and interviews of the kayakers, go to minute 7 in the video...




Finally, here are extreme kayakers in Patagonia...

" Waterfalls of Patagonia " whitewater kayaking with Demshitz! from jared seiler on Vimeo.