This rapid was first descended by Ben Stookesberry on their trip back in 2008 and had only been run twice more before we arrived to the Indus. In all honesty, it would probably be a portage on any other river, but after days of kayaking massive rapids and huge pieces of whitewater, Dane Jackson, Johnny Chase, Evan Moore, and myself all felt pretty confident in plugging the huge hole.
While we were scouting, they all thought if you plugged it down the middle, it would just let you go, I thought the odds were closer to 50/50 if you were going to make it...Johnny went first and made it after squirting way over to the left, Dane went and did a helix to beatdown and swam, Evan went and somehow managed to melt down the whole thing, so I knew I was probably going to swim. I had the "best" line but my paddle immediately got ripped out of my hands, felt like I was getting beat down, and I swam. Also worth mentioning there's for sure no way we would have run this rapid, or any other 50/50 rapid, if we weren't 100% sure in the consequences, our ability to set safety, and self rescue at the bottom.
