Breaking the 100ft waterfall mark has been a long-term goal of mine and has taken many years of slowly building experience at different heights before deciding to step up to triple digits. Last week, everything seemed to line up with a dream crew of Kiwis willing to help make it a reality.
Ram Falls is located in the Rocky Mountains of Alberta, Canada, and was first successfully paddled back in 2012 by the late Peter Thompson, Dylan Thompson, and Ryan “Babybird” Lucas. Since then, there have been only a handful of descents, and it hasn’t been touched since 2019. Ram was never my original plan as my first 100-footer; however, after plans fell through this winter, I chatted with Knox and Aniol, and we all agreed that it was a great option to fire up.
A day after the North Fork Championships, a crew of Kiwis and I made the two-day drive up north from Idaho to Alberta. That day, I got a message from the crew that ran it back in 2019 that the gauge may be reading too low for Ram to come in. Since we had already committed, we decided to check it out anyway and explore some other gems that the local area had to offer as a consolation prize. I arrived a little earlier than the boys and met up with a friend who happened to live an hour away from Ram. We warmed up on the Bighorn, a stunning section of small boofs and drops to dust off the driving cobwebs and were able to have a great night’s sleep in a real bed for a change, in the comfort of knowing that the big scary waterfall was too low to paddle.
We had a slow morning, making porridge and coffee and talking about pins, levels and plans for the coming few days, if Ram wasn’t in. Around noon, we made the drive over to the waterfall. We had come this far; why not check it out? The drive to the national park was stunning, and we were met by friendly park rangers who didn’t bat an eyelid at our kayaks and explained the best way to reach the base of the falls. At the base, my initial thoughts were that flows were marginal, and I wanted more water to be on the safe side. Luckily, Pebbles, my Kiwi counterpart, was significantly more optimistic than I was. We took photos and compared them to screen recordings of when Ed Muggridge and Aniol Serrasolses ran it back in 2018. We analysed small side channels, shelves, and so on, and eventually decided that the flow was about the same, if not even higher, than when they ran it. Oh god, we’re back on…
We drove up to find a way to the lip of the waterfall. From here, you could really gain perspective on how big it was. Back to the screen recordings. The lead-in wave seemed bigger than when the boys had it; the lip looked good enough. We scouted for a while, watching small rocks fall down the falls and bounce back up in the boil at the base of the drop. We already knew it was relatively shallow but deep enough. Just make sure you tuck up, and the little pebbles can hit the back of your helmet! After plenty of deliberation, Pebbles and I had both decided that it was good to go, and we were keen. We geared up and anxiously waited for the other 3 Kiwis to get back to the base of the falls to set up safety and media.
One quick game of rock, paper, scissors later, it was decided that I would go first. I gave Pebbles a big hug, whistled to the crew below to let them know I was ready, and walked over to my ReactR. It was for sure one of the most nervous times I’ve ever been in my kayak. I felt that I had done everything possible to prepare for this moment, but there is always an element of uncontrollable risk when paddling waterfalls at this height.
I floated towards the drop. The lead-in is very slow and flat. Arguably, too slow and flat for my liking. Too much time to think. Spotting my markers, I got hit by the last wave directly above the lip and BOOM, flow state achieved. Time slowed down; I was able to put myself perfectly in place, set my angle, stare it down, throw my paddle and tuck for what felt like an absurd amount of time. I hit the water and instantly felt the mess of boil and small rocks flying all around me. One quick hand roll and I realised I had a perfect line, an insanely soft hit, and I could celebrate a big goal achieved.
The boys threw my paddle back to me, and I joined them on safety for Pebbles. Watching him come down, it seemed like he also had a perfect line. Except when he rolled up, you could see the bow of his boat had caved in, and he was in a fair bit of pain. We got him to the side and found that he had hurt his knee and ankle. Did he hit bottom?! I jumped out, removed the footplate from my ReactR, and we swapped boats so that Pebbles could straight-leg paddle the runout while I paddled his crumpled kayak down. The boys immediately made Pebbles a makeshift splint and took him by an arm each to hike him up the 200ft scree slope back to the cars. We later found out that he had suffered a compression fracture to the top of his tibia and potentially some torn ligaments too. It’s hard to accept injuries when it seems like everything went right, but unfortunately, that’s the risk we take, and we are incredibly grateful to be surrounded by an epic team that was able to support Pebbles and me to deal with anything that came our way.
