jdamin
12-05-2013, 06:21 PM
Sacred Falls is one of the best know waterfalls in the Hawaiian Islands. The bottom waterfall used to be a popular hiking destination before a landslide killed 8 and injured over 50 others back in 1999. Since then, the falls have been “shut down.” Sacred Falls is a beautiful yet ominous canyon with only a few recorded descents. It boasts a 510’ rappel, has very deep, cold slots, and with four streams feeding into it, Sacred has the potential to hold a lot of water. One of our crew, Kitt had formerly been through the canyon and it took a little convincing for him to go back. The trip took 27 hours car-to-car and about 21 of those hours were on the go.
70944
70943
70945
We started our four hour approach shortly after 8:00pm Friday night. It was a good, long, uphill slog with packs stuffed to the brim with 600’ ropes, camping equipment, 5mil wetsuits and all the canyon essentials. At this point, we were still unsure if we could run Sacred because of the weather. The ground was pretty saturated and the canyon was flashing at over 800 cubic feet per second just a few weeks prior (it normally flows less than 10 CFS). Our uncertainty grew as we were woken up several times through the night to downpours (typical for Hawaii).
70946
70947
The next morning, we woke up and check the stream. Everything looked good and we decided to drop in. We got to the first rappel shortly after 7am Saturday and for the majority of the canyon everything was going smoothly. We seemed to be making good time and got to enjoy this seldom explored canyon. It was absolutely beautiful. By mid-day, we were all pretty tired. It isn’t often we need to carry that much gear and the cold was getting to us. I had on a 5mil farmer john, 3mil top and a rain shell to cut down the wind and was still cold by noon that day. The ever present thought of the 510’ flowing rappel made for a bit of a stressful morning. No one said much about it, but it was on all of our minds.
70948
70949
70950
By early afternoon we hit the start of the big drops. The first is a 300’ rappel with the 510’ rappel right after it. The only thing separating the two was a small pool. All you could see from the top was a narrow downward facing shout that seemed to drop off to oblivion. There was a fun amount of water going over too. Enough to make you a little nervous but not enough to cause much of a problem. Matt brought a pair of Motorola waterproof radios to communicate on the large rappels. I went down first to clear any potential knots and set the anchor for the 510’. The line was clean and it was a beautiful rappel; pretty straight forward, solid rock the whole way down to a huge pool and an amazing view. After radioing up, the next 5 came down. I remember watching one of our crew on his descent as he knocked a rock loose that was as big as my torso. We watched as it fell over a hundred feet and slammed into the pool below. The crazy thing is, he didn’t even know he dropped it. Sacred is known for shedding boulders so there’s no fireman’s belaying here…
70951
70952
70953
After we all we down, we started to flake out the 600’ ropes. It was a longer process than it needed to be but we were all pretty tired. Rappelling with that much weight just sucks, no matter how you rig your pack. I was going to be the first one down the 510’ as well. For some reason we dropped the rappel and pull cord at the same time (big mistake, especially on a rappel this big) and there was no chance we were pulling the lines back up. The weight of a 600’ rope being pulled downward by rushing water was a lot more than I expected. I need to used both hand and still struggled to pull enough slack to clip in. This rappel started similar to the 300’. It was about a 20’ long narrow and slightly downward sloping shout. Kitt had a third line he used to rappel down to the lip of the 510’ for photos. With everything set, I started my way down. Just as I got on rappel, I saw the walkie talkie pop off my jacket, go tumbling down the shout and disappear over the waterfall… Matt looked at me in disbelief and just said “really..” There’s nothing we could do now...
70954
70956
70955
I told Kitt as I passed him on the way down that he’d need to stay there to visually communicate with our group so they knew when to send people down. There was a lot of water going over the 510’ and it seemed like the water level was picking up. I made my way down the rappel and did my best to take in the views. Other than one quick stop, I was just focused on getting down. I slung my pack blow me on rappel and the weight was still hard to manage. By the time I got about 2/3 the way down, I couldn’t stop. I was in full break mode on high friction and still slipping down at a good pace. Never before have I felt that sensation. It happened to everybody. The last 100’ or so was just hard to control. About 30’ from the bottom I could see a knot where the two ropes had kinked and twisted around one another. I tried with all my strength and still couldn’t stop. I slid right onto the knot and was stuck 30’ off the ground getting pounded by water. I quickly dropped my pack and kicked off to the side of the waterfall where the flow wasn’t as strong to work on getting free. Using my ascenders, I managed to get my weight off the rappel device but there was no way I was able to untangle the knot or retrieve my ascenders. Still getting pounded by water, I jumped the final 30’ into the pool with ascenders still attached to the rope. The knot and my gear shot up another 10 feet as soon as my weight was off the rope and there was no way I was getting to it. This whole time I was thinking in my head that Kitt probably assumed I died, because I was on rappel and out of sight a lot longer than I should have been.
70957
70959
As I slowly swam across the giant pool towards my pack, I wondered how I would possibly let everyone up top know what had happened. Once I reached my pack, I lifted it out of the water and set it on a nearby boulder. I looked up and saw a tiny red spec which was Kitt still dangling on the edge of the waterfall. When I glanced down and couldn’t believe my eyes. Like a gift from the canyon gods, that yellow Motorola walkie talkie was sitting there, wedged between two rocks with water flowing over it. I tried to contain my excitement figuring there was no way it still worked… but it did. I radioed up what had happened and we tried to figure out how to get the knot untangled. We decided the easiest thing to do was to attach a shorter rope up top and lower the knot down to where I could untangle it. It took about 15 minutes to untangle, but after a long debacle, we finally had the next person coming down. Kitt changed lines and began his descent. Pretty quickly, I saw him stop and seem to be jumping out of the watercourse. There was now a few high tangles that he had to duck under and around before he could continue his descent. Before long, Kitt was at the bottom too and we had the two lines separated.
70961
70960
70962
By this time, the flow had noticeably increased. It was still runable, but we were getting nervous. It had rained on and off throughout the day. Once we had 5 of our group of 6 down, Tim and I continued down canyon to set up the next rappel. It was nearly dark and the next rappel was pretty scary. A two tiered winding waterfall with lots of water and no way to see the bottom till you fully committed. Not to mention a visibility of less than 3’ below you at times because of the water. Kitt said it was less than 300’ but it was really tough to tell. Once I hit bottom, Tim followed. We both sat down there in the dark and waited for the rest of our group to meet us. We sat down there for a very long time. We weren’t sure if something had gone wrong but there’s nothing we could do. We couldn't go back up that waterfall. Both of us were exhausted and freezing. I set an alarm on my watch for 3 hours in which if I hadn’t seen them, I was going to try and continue downstream. Then Tim and I pulled out our bivy blankets to try and warm up. I don’t remember when I fell asleep, but I was woken up over an hour and a half later by Kitt’s headlamp. Wondered what the heck took them so long, Kitt began explaining as a packed up. Apparently Matt, the last one down the 510’ got to the edge and realized the rope was missing it’s sheath… we’re guessing it was a combination of raising and lowing the line and the consistent weight of the rope that caused such damage so quickly. Matt had to re-rig and wound up rappelling down the pull cord (which was just another 600’ 9.2’’ canyon rope). Props to him for managing a very difficult re-rig and huge rappel in the dark.
By this point, we were all pretty over Sacred Falls. It was amazingly beautiful, but we were spent. There were a few more short rappels, swims and jumps followed by a 40 minute hike out to our cars. As we made our way down canyon, I noticed everyone laughing behind me and a comment to the likes of “hey JJ, do you feel any breeze down there.” Throughout the trip, I tore a massive hole in the butt of my wetsuit… I’ll spare you the pictures, but it was pretty funny. I was amazed I didn’t realize it. I guess if you’re wet and cold long enough, everything feels about the same. We made it out around 10:30pm Saturday and went straight to Dominos. As we sat around the table to discuss the trip; fingers hurting to the touch from being so waterlogged and cold, we all decided Sacred was beautiful and challenging, but not a canyon any of us were in a rush to descent again anytime soon.
70944
70943
70945
We started our four hour approach shortly after 8:00pm Friday night. It was a good, long, uphill slog with packs stuffed to the brim with 600’ ropes, camping equipment, 5mil wetsuits and all the canyon essentials. At this point, we were still unsure if we could run Sacred because of the weather. The ground was pretty saturated and the canyon was flashing at over 800 cubic feet per second just a few weeks prior (it normally flows less than 10 CFS). Our uncertainty grew as we were woken up several times through the night to downpours (typical for Hawaii).
70946
70947
The next morning, we woke up and check the stream. Everything looked good and we decided to drop in. We got to the first rappel shortly after 7am Saturday and for the majority of the canyon everything was going smoothly. We seemed to be making good time and got to enjoy this seldom explored canyon. It was absolutely beautiful. By mid-day, we were all pretty tired. It isn’t often we need to carry that much gear and the cold was getting to us. I had on a 5mil farmer john, 3mil top and a rain shell to cut down the wind and was still cold by noon that day. The ever present thought of the 510’ flowing rappel made for a bit of a stressful morning. No one said much about it, but it was on all of our minds.
70948
70949
70950
By early afternoon we hit the start of the big drops. The first is a 300’ rappel with the 510’ rappel right after it. The only thing separating the two was a small pool. All you could see from the top was a narrow downward facing shout that seemed to drop off to oblivion. There was a fun amount of water going over too. Enough to make you a little nervous but not enough to cause much of a problem. Matt brought a pair of Motorola waterproof radios to communicate on the large rappels. I went down first to clear any potential knots and set the anchor for the 510’. The line was clean and it was a beautiful rappel; pretty straight forward, solid rock the whole way down to a huge pool and an amazing view. After radioing up, the next 5 came down. I remember watching one of our crew on his descent as he knocked a rock loose that was as big as my torso. We watched as it fell over a hundred feet and slammed into the pool below. The crazy thing is, he didn’t even know he dropped it. Sacred is known for shedding boulders so there’s no fireman’s belaying here…
70951
70952
70953
After we all we down, we started to flake out the 600’ ropes. It was a longer process than it needed to be but we were all pretty tired. Rappelling with that much weight just sucks, no matter how you rig your pack. I was going to be the first one down the 510’ as well. For some reason we dropped the rappel and pull cord at the same time (big mistake, especially on a rappel this big) and there was no chance we were pulling the lines back up. The weight of a 600’ rope being pulled downward by rushing water was a lot more than I expected. I need to used both hand and still struggled to pull enough slack to clip in. This rappel started similar to the 300’. It was about a 20’ long narrow and slightly downward sloping shout. Kitt had a third line he used to rappel down to the lip of the 510’ for photos. With everything set, I started my way down. Just as I got on rappel, I saw the walkie talkie pop off my jacket, go tumbling down the shout and disappear over the waterfall… Matt looked at me in disbelief and just said “really..” There’s nothing we could do now...
70954
70956
70955
I told Kitt as I passed him on the way down that he’d need to stay there to visually communicate with our group so they knew when to send people down. There was a lot of water going over the 510’ and it seemed like the water level was picking up. I made my way down the rappel and did my best to take in the views. Other than one quick stop, I was just focused on getting down. I slung my pack blow me on rappel and the weight was still hard to manage. By the time I got about 2/3 the way down, I couldn’t stop. I was in full break mode on high friction and still slipping down at a good pace. Never before have I felt that sensation. It happened to everybody. The last 100’ or so was just hard to control. About 30’ from the bottom I could see a knot where the two ropes had kinked and twisted around one another. I tried with all my strength and still couldn’t stop. I slid right onto the knot and was stuck 30’ off the ground getting pounded by water. I quickly dropped my pack and kicked off to the side of the waterfall where the flow wasn’t as strong to work on getting free. Using my ascenders, I managed to get my weight off the rappel device but there was no way I was able to untangle the knot or retrieve my ascenders. Still getting pounded by water, I jumped the final 30’ into the pool with ascenders still attached to the rope. The knot and my gear shot up another 10 feet as soon as my weight was off the rope and there was no way I was getting to it. This whole time I was thinking in my head that Kitt probably assumed I died, because I was on rappel and out of sight a lot longer than I should have been.
70957
70959
As I slowly swam across the giant pool towards my pack, I wondered how I would possibly let everyone up top know what had happened. Once I reached my pack, I lifted it out of the water and set it on a nearby boulder. I looked up and saw a tiny red spec which was Kitt still dangling on the edge of the waterfall. When I glanced down and couldn’t believe my eyes. Like a gift from the canyon gods, that yellow Motorola walkie talkie was sitting there, wedged between two rocks with water flowing over it. I tried to contain my excitement figuring there was no way it still worked… but it did. I radioed up what had happened and we tried to figure out how to get the knot untangled. We decided the easiest thing to do was to attach a shorter rope up top and lower the knot down to where I could untangle it. It took about 15 minutes to untangle, but after a long debacle, we finally had the next person coming down. Kitt changed lines and began his descent. Pretty quickly, I saw him stop and seem to be jumping out of the watercourse. There was now a few high tangles that he had to duck under and around before he could continue his descent. Before long, Kitt was at the bottom too and we had the two lines separated.
70961
70960
70962
By this time, the flow had noticeably increased. It was still runable, but we were getting nervous. It had rained on and off throughout the day. Once we had 5 of our group of 6 down, Tim and I continued down canyon to set up the next rappel. It was nearly dark and the next rappel was pretty scary. A two tiered winding waterfall with lots of water and no way to see the bottom till you fully committed. Not to mention a visibility of less than 3’ below you at times because of the water. Kitt said it was less than 300’ but it was really tough to tell. Once I hit bottom, Tim followed. We both sat down there in the dark and waited for the rest of our group to meet us. We sat down there for a very long time. We weren’t sure if something had gone wrong but there’s nothing we could do. We couldn't go back up that waterfall. Both of us were exhausted and freezing. I set an alarm on my watch for 3 hours in which if I hadn’t seen them, I was going to try and continue downstream. Then Tim and I pulled out our bivy blankets to try and warm up. I don’t remember when I fell asleep, but I was woken up over an hour and a half later by Kitt’s headlamp. Wondered what the heck took them so long, Kitt began explaining as a packed up. Apparently Matt, the last one down the 510’ got to the edge and realized the rope was missing it’s sheath… we’re guessing it was a combination of raising and lowing the line and the consistent weight of the rope that caused such damage so quickly. Matt had to re-rig and wound up rappelling down the pull cord (which was just another 600’ 9.2’’ canyon rope). Props to him for managing a very difficult re-rig and huge rappel in the dark.
By this point, we were all pretty over Sacred Falls. It was amazingly beautiful, but we were spent. There were a few more short rappels, swims and jumps followed by a 40 minute hike out to our cars. As we made our way down canyon, I noticed everyone laughing behind me and a comment to the likes of “hey JJ, do you feel any breeze down there.” Throughout the trip, I tore a massive hole in the butt of my wetsuit… I’ll spare you the pictures, but it was pretty funny. I was amazed I didn’t realize it. I guess if you’re wet and cold long enough, everything feels about the same. We made it out around 10:30pm Saturday and went straight to Dominos. As we sat around the table to discuss the trip; fingers hurting to the touch from being so waterlogged and cold, we all decided Sacred was beautiful and challenging, but not a canyon any of us were in a rush to descent again anytime soon.