High Water Chamberlain Falls (Possible highest water descent)

Last week, Paul Ramseth, Johnny Chase and I were able to get out on Chamberlain Falls at full on flood stage, about 25,000 cfs on the gauge, possibly the highest water descent. Last year I attempted the run at around 30,000, but we hiked out at Chamberlain falls because it was too much for our group that day.
I've put together a little video showcasing our day and what the river was like, but I also wanted to do something different and actually talk about how we ran the river that day. So often I see and make videos that only show the highlights of the day, the best rapids, the best boofs, high fives, and fun. What you don't see is the thought process or the things that happen behind the scenes to make these days happen.
Running a river at flood stage is dangerous, and requires extreme focus, skill, knowledge, communication, and teamwork. There are huge features, the eddies are filled with helical flowing boils that can make it very challenging to break past the eddy fence, there can be lots of debris, and people can get spread out very fast in the current so it's imperative to stay close together and keep your eyes on each other.
When we arrived at put in, we found the swollen river much higher than normal, the last reading on the gauge was about 20,000 cfs. We decided to try to walk down to Chamberlain Falls to see if we could scout it, but on our way to the trail we stopped at an overlook to see down to the river. I could tell it was a little bit lower than last year because one of the rocks in Slaughter's Sluice was almost visible, Chamberlain Falls looked like it could be closed out and a roll of the dice, and there was a gigantic hole below on the left above Zig Zag. After some deliberation, we decided to hike in below Chamberlain Falls and Zig Zag to play it safe.
At the river we talked about how we were going to run it, and our plan in case anything went wrong. We planned to eddy hop our way down, staying as close together as possible with Paul leading because he knew the river the best, Johnny second, and myself last. If anything were to happen to one of us, blow and eddy, swim, lose our paddle etc., our immediate focus would turn to that person and getting them to safety while making sure we weren't putting ourselves in more danger.
In the end, we scouted 4 times in the 2 miles between Zig Zag and Staircase, and it took us about 2 hours to get to the bottom of Staircase, including an hour portage and all the scouting. All the rapids are for sure runnable, but the consequences of swimming, losing your paddle, your deck imploding, or anything going wrong were far too high for us that day.
After Staircase, the river eased up and it became less stressful and way more fun. We ended up kayaking all the way to the confluence of the Middle Fork, which was the last section I needed to complete to finish the entire North Fork from Royal Gorge down to the confluence. Huge shout out to Phillip Schoenhoff and Ashley Brown for the shuttle and Paul and Johnny for the motivation and an awesome day! Stay safe out there.

[@sacjusticeforyou]

Dude, your ability to read whitewater is mind blowing. Being in your swift water rescue course 2x n a month n watching you in your element was phenomenal. You are truly a river otter bro n wish you many blessings in your new adventure on land. Namaste’

[@BillFarnham]

Appreciate the write up. Thank you for taking the time to include that information!

[@michaelhill56]

Excellent big water footage, brings back some great memories for this old river rat! I used to love paddling this kind of water, probably had 50+ similar experiences. Gotta watch out for those trees sneaking up on you!

[@ebweks4174]

Awesome video, really cool to see this. Might be a few years late on the comment but I did it in a proto Agent around 27 or 28k in the winter of '05/06. The bottom hole of staircase actually opens up on the left side a bit at higher flows. Now that I am not 16 years old this looks much more impressive :)

[@Luke__Whelan]

Sick dude. Liked the commentary too

[@lauraspillane304]

That's pretty nutty. Not much room for error on that...

[@mountain_ginger]

Heard of some class V guys rafting at those flows. Insane though. Staircase is so mean at that flow. Heard Chamberlain falls might be prettty nasty as well.

[@lunaticrider209]

Fun stuff! I definitely miss it!! Solid run. I ran the Merced above 15,000 cfs wayyy above flood stage and talk about a rush. No eddies and had a friend swim that day too. Cool part was highway patrol and fire fighter trucks and buses that head up to Yosemite were watching us from the road probably saying to themselves what a bunch of nuts lol. Nope we just enjoying what we love paddling big whitewater. Cheers!

[@trwent]

25 grand is just INSANE for the NF American.

[@paulherring8959]

Great video but I could have done without the Alvin and the Chipmunks accompaniment.

[@MrPistolpete1234]

Why is there such shitty music on most kayaking videos? I feel your pain