Through the Looking Glass, Darkly

Through the Looking Glass, Darkly

a Carolina Paddler Article

By Alton Chewning

Some people choose to do things we don’t understand.  We may feel what they are attempting is foolish, reckless, a bad example to others.  They risk their own lives, yes, but they risk the lives and emotions of others.  And why? For a physical rush, a few seconds of thrill?  For a good story or video?  For fame and riches?  Or…  for the realization of a dream?

Perhaps we envy them.  What a feat!  What daring!  Maybe we could do the same, if only…

Ultimately, we don’t know why a person does what they do.  We can have opinions based on what we have seen or heard.  We can hear the educated guesses made by people close to them, the witnesses of the event.  We can ask the person.  Maybe they have an answer, a heartfelt one.

There is another approach we can take.  Describe the unfamiliar act and the people involved in it.  “Be curious, not judgmental.”  Walt Whitman’s advice (as relayed by the sage Ted Lasso) encourages us to look behind our first reaction and see if we can find a better understanding of the reasons.  So, what d’you say, let’s have a run at curiosity.

On January 9^th, 2024, a lot of rain was falling around Brevard, NC.  A lot of rain, six inches.  For many this caused problems: wash-outs, accidents, damaged property, risked lives.  For a few, this provided opportunities.

Looking Glass Falls lies within Pisgah National Forest, not far from Brevard.  It’s one of the most beautiful and popular waterfalls in North Carolina, and one of the most accessible.  Hwy 276 runs right beside the falls and there’s parking (for some) and well-developed pathways and outlooks.  The Falls itself is truly stunning, with a backdrop of bald mountain face, rising far above to Looking Glass Rock.  When wet and the sun just so, the bare rock becomes a mirror, dark yet revealing.

The curtain of water falling over the cascade is even and wide, dropping into a shallow basin and then winding away as Looking Glass Creek.  Not far is another destination, one of those you-have-to-do-it spots, Slippery Rock, where you can slide on your bottom and get a wholesome thrill, perhaps a bruise.

Looking Glass Falls receives plenty of attention, at all times of the year.  On the January day of the big rains, people were stopping their cars to take in the sight.  This was not the tame, picaresque falls so normally seen.  Here was a mighty beast of water, convulsing over the lip and crashing into the mists of the obscured pool.  A log bordered the lower river-right side of the pool, appearing as a fence rail to the rodeo ring of water.  Only the river-left seemed free-flowing, allowing the waters to gush downward into a creek turned torrent.  No Slippery Rock sliding today.

Ryan McAvoy had been wishing for a day like today.  Ryan is an accomplished paddler.  He’s been hard at it for 19 years, paddling difficult runs like Linville, Toxaway and Raven Fork.  His skill and exploits have garnered him sponsors and a place on the Waka Kayaks team.  Ryan is ready to try another personal first, something friends like Michael Ferraro have supported.  Riding his Waka and gumption down Looking Glass Falls.

It’s been done before.  Six times before.  The last to do it was his friend Ferraro, in 2019.  The first was Corran Addison.  Name ring a bell?

Addison

Corran Addison is one of those names that pops up all over the adventure sports landscape, both in the past and in the present.  He’s been an explorer and innovator and a rebel of change. The Batman doing the early big drops.  The freestyle rodeo rider. The bad boy of boat design. The Mad Hatter of marketing.  Perhaps only Eric Jackson has shared the same vision and reach, while maintaining a bit more decorum.

Addison was born in South Africa and introduced to kayaking by his dad, Graeme.  Graeme had seen the film, “Deliverance”, and like so many other viewers, he decided paddling difficult, perilous waters seemed like a good idea.  Addison progressed rapidly, from a cheeky teenage upstart to a brash adult provocateur.  He came to America and fell in with other whitewater prodigies, like Dan Gavere and Russ Kulmar.  The Southeast beckoned, with its plentiful whitewater and challenging drops.

The time was the late 1980’s.  As Addison says, “Chattooga IV was the rock-n-roll run at the time.”  The problem, though, was the southern US was in a drought.  From 1987 to 1990, rivers were dry, and paddling options were limited.  So, what to do when flow is scarce?  Addison decided to run a waterfall, not just any, but a big one, with low flow.

Addison shared, “It was a drought, there was no water anywhere.  You couldn’t run anything anywhere.  It was partly why I ran it; I was just desperate to run something…”

Corran’s Run

Addison showed up at Looking Glass that winter day with his crew: his girlfriend and a buddy, Ken Richardson.  Ken’s job was to take a photograph (video was rare and expensive) of Corran going over the drop.  For the performance, Corran would be in costume, a Batman helmet and cape.  That’s the Addison style.

Corran and the rare others who were running bigger falls knew you could not pencil into a shallow plunge pool like Looking Glass.  The Falls’ curtain was transparent, the base shallow, with rocks peppering the bottom.   Corran spent a couple of hours paddling and prodding in the pool, looking for the best place to land.  The center of the falls seemed to be a foot or so deeper, maybe five or six feet of water.

This reconnaissance confirmed what Corran thought.  The drop must be boofed.  Now, on the other side of the looking glass, we know, you can’t boof a drop that tall.  But then, in 1990, Corran recalls, “We didn’t know.  The only person who had ever run anything that high before was me.  And it was in France (31-meter vertical drop on Lake Tignes).  And it was a different kind of drop.  It was a drop you penciled in, which is what they all do now, right?”

 “There had been some 45 footers that had been run.  There were arguments about whether you were better off penciling in or landing flat or landing at 45 degrees.  It didn’t seem to matter which one of those you did because at some point, somewhere, somebody had been injured.   Whiplash or compression or breaking ankles when the boat hit the bottom.  So, nobody knew.  We didn’t know what your back could survive, we didn’t know how the forces were being transmitted.  We didn’t know if the boat landed at 45 versus at 30 degrees versus 60 degrees what kinds of whiplash-type forces were going to be put through your spine and your neck.  We just didn’t know.”

“The only way we knew was by people like me doing stuff and figuring out, “Okay, that’s not a good idea, let’s not do that again.”  Corran laughs heartily.

Addison had two choices that day: land flat or don’t run it at all.  He really wanted to paddle something that day.  So, let’s discuss the approach he took.

Corran took a middle line at the lip.  Corran: “Right in the middle seemed to be the deepest at the bottom. Also at low water, there is a tiny bit of flake right at the top that I wanted to use to kick my nose up.

As Corran came off the lip, he was horizontal, “Yeah, yeah.  I’m trying to get the nose up. To me it was imperative to land flat.  That was the goal.  The goal was to land completely flat.”

Addison, “The guys that were with me told me right as I came off the lip, I had the nose dropping ever so slightly and as I fell the boat flattened out, through the wind coming up under the boat, pushing up under the hull and I landed completely flat like a pancake.”  Just as he hoped to do.

Addison, “This was a heavy-duty Kevlar boat and it shattered from the impact.  And if it hadn’t shattered, my spine would have shattered.”

Corran knew immediately something was wrong.  “All the sensations went out of my legs.  My knees dropped out of the thigh brace down into the bottom of the boat.  I had no control of my hips or legs.  I thought I had severed my spinal cord.”

Keep in mind Addison’s team were two friends.  Addison laughs recounting the scene, “Nooo, we didn’t do safety back then.”

Addison: “I didn’t know the boat had cracked.  By the time I got to shore it was filling up with water. I told my girlfriend and my buddy that I had injured my spine and needed an ambulance. By then, there were some tourists who showed up and they were just dumbfounded.  They all help me out of the boat in a way that didn’t do any rotational damage to me, and they laid me down on the rocks right at the edge of the drop. Then I waited for the ambulance.”

There was ice from the night before, mostly melted with the temperature rising to mid-30s F.  The ambulance arrived soon, and Addison avoided hypothermia.

How would Corran approach the same drop at the same water level today?

Addison: “I wouldn’t run it.  You only have two options.  Not run it or land flat. It’s only five feet deep.  When the water’s high, the pool fills up.  It gets 10 feet or 15 feet.  Deep enough when Russ Kulmar ran it, he penciled in and never hit bottom.”

“The math is quite simple.  If you pencil it and it’s only five feet deep, the nose of the boat is going to hit the rock and you’re going to break your ankle, maybe your femur, maybe your tibula fibula, maybe your hips.  You’re going to shatter your whole lower body if you hit like that.  What’s Looking Glass? 75, 78 feet tall?  To me, you just don’t, what we know now, you just don’t run drops like that with low water.”

“When’s you’re young you want to try stuff that you’re not willing to do when you are older.  You think you are invincible.  I didn’t go in thinking it was a roll of the dice.  You know, “This is risky, I’m just going to roll the dice and take a chance.”  I seriously thought I was going to paddle away and be fine.  If I have a perfect run, if I go off the lip and land flat as I intend to land, I’m going to be fine.  But we just didn’t know what your body could handle, and it couldn’t handle that.”

“I know Russ Kulmar ran it at 2-3 years later, maybe 4, about the same flows as Ryan did.  He just paddled off the middle and let his nose drop as he went off the top.  It wasn’t quite vertical, but he was probably 60 degrees when he hit.  He said afterwards his neck was a little bit stiff the next day but no big deal.”

Addison’s Scale

At this point, we should turn to another dimension of river running, estimating the potential of a river. Addison, ever the active mind, has his own system for assigning ratings for river particulars.  They can be read here and in this Carolina Paddler article. Basically, Addison’s Scale assigns ratings for the difficulty of a rapid (or river), the consequences of a bad run, and the rescue and medical options available in the locale.  The most challenging run in a water park could be a 4/2A.  Technically difficult, low danger consequences, top medical help nearby.

So, how would Addison have used his scale to rate Looking Glass Falls on that day in 1990?

Addison:  “I would say Looking Glass is a 3/5A.  Technically it’s very easy. Consequences of a mistake were not deadly but significant and severe.  Within an hour of first-world medical help.  So, it’s a 3/5A.   I mean, going on memory it was a straight shot at low water.  You just line up at the top and as you get to the lip your boat is pointed straight, and you take one well-timed boof stroke and that’s it.  Maybe a Class III paddler couldn’t do it because if you don’t get that boof stroke right you’re going to go in ass over tea kettle, so maybe a 4.  I mean, it was very easy.”

So, back at the plunge pool.  The ambulance arrives.  Addison: “They put me on a spine board.  Took me to a hospital.  Started doing X-Rays. I had no sensation in my legs.  I could move my arms, lift my head, things like that.  So, the initial assumption was that I’d severed my spinal cord in my lumbar.  The x-rays showed that it wasn’t severed, it was pinched.  They kept me immobilized. They put me in this traction thing and gave me a whole bunch of drugs to get the swelling down.  By the next morning the swelling had come down to where I could feel my legs, they were tingly.  I couldn’t move them, but I felt them, the sensations were coming back. They basically put me in this taco, and I was immobilized, completely immobilized for two months.  Then I was told to not do anything for another month.  Not walk, not do anything.  For three months I was immobilized.

When did Addison get back in a boat?  “I tried to get in a boat late that spring.  I was with Russ Kulmar.  We tried to run Section IV on Chattooga.  We put in below Woodall.  I paddled about 200 meters and told Russ that I couldn’t paddle, in fact, that I couldn’t move.  So, we got to shore, and he put me on his back and walked me all the way up to the parking lot above Woodall, walked back down, got the two boats, came back up and drove me home.  That was my first attempt. It was late summer before I could paddle again.”

By the fall of 1990, Addison was back to running drops.  The Green Narrows had first been run in 1988 and Corran was eager to try it out.  He did and soon he was back in Europe, paddling aggressively.  There was no debilitating self-reflection from Looking Glass.  Addison: “There was no problem.  I knew exactly what had happened and why it happened, and it was all good.”

All good mentally but with some physical reminders.  Addison: “I’m in constant pain all the time.”  From Looking Glass?  Addison: “Yes. 100 percent.  Lower lumbar.  It hurts all the time.  It’s not problematic for me.  It’s been that way for 34 years.  It’s just what is.  That constant throb in my lower back is just what life is.”

The outlook, the mind set we bring to a situation means everything.  Addison: “Like I said, psychologically, it was a perfect run.  It’s not like,  “I got in over my head, I was overwhelmed, I made mistakes and that put me in a situation that was life-threatening.”  It wasn’t like that.  I made a perfect run but based on imperfect knowledge.  So, now we know.  I went on to run much harder, more challenging things, also motorcycles, surfing, snowboarding, kayak of course.  It didn’t faze me because I didn’t feel like I really messed up here.”

McAvoy

We turn now to Ryan McAvoy, who dropped Looking Glass Falls on January 9, 2024.  For whatever reasons, his helmet cam video went viral.  It’s an audacious run and the folly and success of it has been debated widely.  The video has collected over 1000 FB comments and quite frankly, McAvoy is a little tired of the attention.

McAvoy is a very good paddler.  While you’re perusing his LGF video, check out some of his other runs: Linville, Raven Fork, Ramsay. He’s done much harder rivers and not received nearly the attention.  So, it’s not purely about the difficulty or danger of what he’s attempted.  It’s more about the public exposure and the perception of the event. We turn to Corran Addison again.  After all he was the first to run it.  And while he had a “perfect run” technically, he’s the only one of the seven LGF jumpers to be seriously injured.  And the only one to do it at low water.

Corran posted a comment on Ryan’s site, commenting on the LGF run, “Why didn’t you boof?”  We asked Corran about this.  “That was a joke! It was a joke based on two things. One, I boofed it and I got hurt, so obviously you don’t want to boof it, look what happened to me, right?”

Then Corran mentions Bruce Hare who for many years ran the Chattooga Whitewater Shop.  Bruce was showing footage of some paddlers running Overflow Creek.  Addison “This was back in the Dancer days and one guy goes over a drop of Overflow and forgets to boof and he pitons and he comes to an abrupt stop and smashes his face on the front of the boat and the whole front of the boat bends backwards and there are like twenty of us watching this video in Bruce’s shop and Bruce say’s ‘Oh no! He forgot to boof!’  So, it’s a running gag.”

Before Ryan came Ferraro

A friend of Ryan’s, Michael Ferraro, made a successful run of Looking Glass in 2019.  Here’s his post:

Ferraro: “It felt good to pull this one off a while back. While RVs were floating down the French Broad and water was in abundance in western NC, I hurried up to Looking Glass for a quick scout and what I found was a 60’ waterfall with ALOT of flow. This was the fifth descent of Looking Glass and one of my proudest moments in kayaking.”

Ferraro’s successful run happened in similar conditions as Ryan’s.  For whatever reasons it did not stir up the community nearly as much.

Ryan’s Run

From other video shot by on-lookers, we can see a log spanning much of the downriver right side of the plunge pool, leaving clearance only on the left.  So, Ryan had to go river left at the drop to avoid the log.  He could not take the center line Ferraro had used for danger of being swept into the tree.

Addison dissects the run, “I think his flow looked good.  He’s clearly a solid paddler.  It was a sound decision to run it.  He made a small mistake on the approach and that’s why it went wrong.

He got too left too soon on the approach, and that meant he no longer had left hand momentum and so when he hit that little curler just before the drop, it snapped his bow left and his tail passed him, and he went over the drop sideways…

He made a small mistake technically, but that mistake was 30-40ft. upstream. We’ve all made mistakes, and he just made a small mistake…. and he came out fine.  

Does this count as a “successful” run of Looking Glass?  Rafa Ortiz ran the 190ft. Palouse Falls trying to tie Tyler Bradt (and a couple of others) for the waterfall record.  He famously was torn from his boat in the depths of the plunge pool and so the drop didn’t “count”.

Addison:  That idea of staying in your boat came from Shaun Baker and I.  Back in the late 80’s, early 90’s Shaun was the guy in Europe running all the big stuff and I was the guy in the US running the big stuff.  We wanted to establish some guidelines as to what constitutes a successful run, and we basically came up with “you have to paddle away from the base.”  If you are separated from your boat, it’s an ‘attempt’ but it’s not a ‘success.’  This was just a criteria we gentlemen agreed on as to what would constitute a successful run and that kind of got out and spread around.  It’s now the de facto go-to.  You need to paddle away from the base.  Let’s say you go over a drop and your boat snaps in half, and you take five strokes away from the base and then you bail out because your boat’s full of water and sunk and you swim to shore. That’s success.  You paddled away from the base.  But if you land on your face and swim, no.  Hat’s off to you for giving it a go but you didn’t succeed.

So, Ryan made a small mistake, let his boat turn at the top, came out, swam to the bank, gathered his boat, and walked away.  His run was not a “success.”  Corran hit the lip perfectly, boofing to just the angle he desired, stuck a perfectly executed flat landing, paddled to the bank and spent months recovering from a broken back.  Corran’s run was a success.  In the fun-house mirror abstraction of adventure sports, success meant a broken back and failure meant walking away.

Ryan wasn’t doing this to set a record.  He was doing it for the love of the game.  If Corran had a run like Ryan’s, how would he view it?  Addison: “Nice try.  No cigar.”  Would you do it again?  Addison: “Yeah, I’d walk up and do it again.

Ryan was fine.  He wasn’t hurt.  His boat was fine.  Collect your shit and walk back up and do it again. He got too close to the rock on the left at the top, at the entrance.  He needed to be 5-6 feet right of that rock… Because he got too far left too early, he got tangled in that rock, he didn’t have any left-hand momentum, there’s a curler right above the drop that caught his nose, it slowed the nose down.  The main current is in the center of the boat which was then under the tail and it swung the tail around.  Whoops!  Go up and do it again.”

Corran: “Ryan seems like a proficient enough paddler.  Not a drop that requires high skill.  It requires more balls than skills.  Really.  You just want to not be in a rush to get left and as long as you take your time to get left and you straighten the boat out you’re going to be fine.  As long as you have the courage to go, it’s a go.  So hats off to him for giving it a shot.  Don’t be dissuaded.”

The Controversy

The video of Ryan McAvoy running Looking Glass Falls was spread widely as were videos shot by others who happened to be present.  A storm of emotional responses followed, some people strongly critical of McAvoy’s run, others supportive of him and critical of the detractors.  Here we try to condense the main points of each side and run them by Addison.  Starting with the “Against”.

It’s a dangerous stunt and the paddler could have been hurt or killed.

Addison: “Unlikely.  It’s not any more dangerous that running Gorilla.  Look how many people go over Gorilla backwards or sideways or upside down.  Nobody says anything about it.  Every weekend somebody goes over Gorilla upside down and nobody cares.

Kayaking Class IV or V is dangerous.  You’re out there looking for danger.  That’s what Class V is, you’re looking for trouble.  He was fine.  It’s no more or less dangerous than running Gorilla, in fact it’s lot easier than Gorilla. If you going to think this attempt was not a good idea, then you’ve got to hold the same thing for everyone who runs Gorilla.  You have to hold them to the same standard.”

Rescuing him would endanger his safety crew.  There was a lot of flow.

Addison: “Nah. Rescuing somebody at the base of Gorilla is worse because you’ve got two more cascades right after it. Looking Glass is flat, there’s nothing happening downstream. It’s just current. One of the safest rescue operations you’ll see, all things considered.”

A rescue could involve risk to First Responders or bystanders.

Addison: “Not any more than rescuing any other kayaker in any other drop, in fact, less so, it’s roadside.  Consider again, Gorilla.  Could you imagine trying to rescue somebody from the falls below Gorilla?  What that would entail?”

It’s prohibited, at least discouraged. Perhaps breaking rules. Fenced off.

Addison: “A lot of people have run a lot of creeks, me included, that you weren’t allowed to run.  You sneak over the fences.  Look at all that stuff, all those creeking videos that made creeking popular in the late 80’s and the 90’s.  Wayne Gentry videos, Kent Wigington and Russ Kulmar, sneaking into all kinds of spots to run drops that were prohibited, and nobody said anything.  I don’t know why anybody cares now.

What about copycats?  People seeing videos like this and being influenced to try the same?

Addison: “That applies to every single video shot by every single kayaker who’s ever ran a rapid that was difficult.  Sure, if people see other people running stuff, they are going to want to do it too.  Okay.  They’ve been shooting video of hard drops for fifty years.”

Seeing the attention given to Ryan and those thousands of Gorilla videos, does it encourage somebody to try something they aren’t ready for?

Addison:  Sure it does.  That’s called “Personal Responsibility.”  It’s not the responsibility of the person who ran the drop to make sure other people aren’t stupid.  If you see somebody doing something that you’re not capable of doing and you go off and do it, then you’re an idiot, not the person who ran the drop and filmed it.  The person that attempted to do something without the skills to do it, you’re the idiot, not the guy that ran it.

“Look, if it’s illegal, it’s illegal. In a place like the US, where everything is illegal, I mean what are you going to do?  I mean, if you go to Europe, the concept of personal responsibility is so well developed.  You can go to the top of a ski mountain with a paraglider with a motor on your back, take the ski lift and jump off the top and nobody’s going to say anything.  “Hey, man, if you want to go throw yourself off the top of mountain, with that thing on your back, well, okay.” Where in the US they put up roadblocks and laws everywhere because nobody takes personal responsibility for their own actions.  So, yeah, there’s lots of laws that prohibit people from doing all sorts of cool, fun stuff.  BASE jumping is illegal in the US, illegal, but lots of people do it.”

Do you think by making a law prohibiting something, you take away some of the incentive for personal responsibility?

Addison: “I think you take away personal responsibility.  You tell people it’s not your fault.  It is your fault.  If you do something stupid it’s your fault.”

Okay, let’s go through some of the “For” comments.  He was an experienced paddler and knew what he was doing.

Addison: “He was an experienced paddler; he knew what he was doing, and he made a mistake.  We all make mistakes.”

He had a Safety team ready at the plunge pool.

Addison:  Right.  Which is more than I had, or Russ Kulmar had.

If you were doing it now, would you have a safety team?

Addison:  Yeah.  For sure.  You know better.

Ryan waited for good conditions, high water.

Addison: Yup.  He did.

He was the one taking the risks.

Addison:  Correct.

Most people who are critical of Ryan’s exploit are not experienced with the sport or are risk-adverse.

Addison: “Yeah, that’s usually the case. The old “what about-ism.” Invariably the sorts of people who take issue with this kind of thing are the sorts of people who would never do it themselves and they take issue with other people living their lives in the way they want to live them.  Ryan decided it added value to him and his life and his life goals to attempt this drop and other people who don’t have the same source of outward life vision are being critical of him and his life choices.  Look at people who criticize people for being gay.  It’s the same mindset.  Well, I wouldn’t do that therefore you’re wrong.”

People have a right to do what they want to do if it only involves the person.

Addison: “The way I look at that is you have the right to do anything that you want to do that doesn’t negatively affect other people directly.  Now, if you run something and you die, your parents are going to be upset. Or your wife or your kids or whatever. They will be highly upset. If you have a rescue team there and they also accepted the risk and responsibility, then they all agreed they are going to back you up on this.

 If you are putting people at risk who were not involved in the decision-making process of whether they wanted to be involved in a risky endeavor, that is not okay.”

Ryan lived; he wasn’t hurt.  What is the problem?

Addison: “Like I said, if it were me, I’d run up and try it again. Short of “Hey we got to skedaddle because we’re going to get arrested, short of that I would have…  My understanding is he wasn’t hurt in any way, he wasn’t even really shaken up in any way, nothing wrong with the boat.  I’d would have walked up and tried it again.  Fixed my mistake and hopped off again.

It may have been a bucket list thing for him and he said, “Alright, I gave it a shot and didn’t work out.  I realize I’m not willing to assume that risk a second time for whatever personal reasons he had and he decides he doesn’t want to do it and he calls it a day.  That’s cool.  I’ve got more respect for somebody who says, “I’m going to walk this one,” than somebody who feels pressured by the people watching him to go back up and try it a second time and he feels it is possibly a bad idea. “

Ryan put a disclaimer on his FB page prior to the video.  “Do not attempt, this was performed by professionals with years of experience.”  And….“This was driven simply by my passion and love of the whitewater sport of kayaking.”

Addison: “I think it is sad that he had to do that.  I think that’s bullshit.  That’s how messed up shit has got where people take so little responsibility for themselves that a guy who was perfectly within his rights and his means to attempt that drop has to put in a disclaimer like that justifying his decision to do something that was important to himself because he knew beforehand there would be backlash from internet social warriors. To me, that is complete and utter nonsense.  Shouldn’t have had to do that.  Just the fact that he had to do that, that I think is the biggest controversy of this whole thing.  To me, that is the controversy, that he would have to write that paragraph at all.

If you wanted to summarize this in a nutshell.  You have an issue with Ryan’s attempt at running Looking Glass Falls, you need to have the same issue with every failed attempt at every other whitewater rapid that has ever been attempted by every other kayaker in the history of kayaking.  If that is not your position, you need to shut up.  Because now you’re cherry picking and it’s the same.  Somebody having a bad run at Grumpy’s on the Ocoee is the same thing as having a bad run on Looking Glass.  You attempted something that you did not pull off and you could have the same argument about putting rescuers in danger and endangering yourself.  It’s the same thing. You don’t have a leg to stand on in your negative attitude towards Ryan’s run.  That’s my position.”

Looking Glass is a reciprocal mirror.  Shining the light of curiosity and openness on the other side of the mirror allows us to see their position, where they stand.  The light of sharing and exchange opens our view to others.  We both can see through the Looking Glass.

It was Ryan’s Run so let’s give him the last word.  A person, perhaps a friend, commented on Ryan’s page:

Friend:  “F**k yeah.  But bud… be stoked even more when you run it successfully!”

Ryan replied, “I can still walk so I’m considering it successful.”

 

SOURCES

Special thanks to Paul Scrutton for recommending this story.

Ryan McAvoy’s Looking Glass Falls run

https://fb.watch/pFCwe1VSR_/

Michael Ferraro’s Looking Glass Falls run

https://youtu.be/vjr00F3fMnw?si=7aKxJRlLF1dRk8Bu

Interview with Curran Addison, January 11, 2024.

Carolina Paddler article, “Addison’s Scale”

Addison’s Scale for Rivers