yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

Fight or Die | Edge of the Unknown on Disney+


2m read
·Nov 10, 2024

It's freaking gnarly, dude. It's as gnarly as I could have imagined it being. This is a lot of fun. Just really nervous about how fast I'm going to be actually flying off the lip.

With drop kayaking, when you're really pushing yourself is when you feel more alive, but it's really dangerous. Waterfall running is not something that everybody likes to engage with. You come in with speed, and then you immediately go to a vertical freefall. You are going from 45 miles an hour to a dead stop. It feels like being whiplashed in a car crash. We take hits. Hitting your face with your paddle, breaking your nose, which is why we sometimes throw the paddles. The benefit of throwing your paddle, it creates less chances of hitting yourself with the paddle.

With a hydraulic, you have this curtain of water that's hitting the pool, and it's pulling you down underwater. If you are in a hydraulic, you can also play dead, and then the water will pull you down and pop you downstream. It's kinda sketchy out there. If you go too far right, it has a really bad spot where it kind of folds back in and you would probably just break your boat and die.

The Rio Santo Domingo has this super steep section that had never been done before as a complete top-to-bottom descent. I get it. They're crazy-looking rapids, man. Before running a rapid, you always visualize the line. How are you going to enter the current? Where are your reference points, a rock or a breaking wave? And where do you want to be on that lip?

I feel like we need a solid safety team down there, dude. And the amount of people that we have right now, I'm not sure if it's enough. On trips like this, you have to trust that your partners are going to be able to potentially save your life because in big drop kayaking, you can plan every move, you can scout every line, but until you're in the water, you don't know exactly what's going to happen. The most important thing for me is not getting hurt. I don't want that for my family.

[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
[BABY COOING]
[VOCALIZING]
How are you, buddy?

ALI CASAS: [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] Hey, what you guys reading? When I met Gerd, I started kayaking. He's been a good teacher, and we've been kayaking together ever since. You got the keys?

ALI CASAS: Kayaking gives you more mental strength because you're about to run something that scares you. I trust him a lot, and I know that he doesn't do stupid things. But I worry all the time. I just don't tell him. Nice! Let's go. You ready? We have two tiny persons at home that they are waiting for him, and you always think that something bad can happen.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

More Articles

View All
A Holiday Present from Lamorne Morris | Valley of the Boom
Hello! I was just enjoying a warm beverage right here beside this crackling fire, you know, holiday stuff to celebrate the season. National Geographic, and I come bearing gifts. Watch the first two episodes of “Valley of the Boom” for free on demand and …
Making Liquid Nitrogen From Scratch!
Nitrogen is everywhere. It’s a fundamental building block of life. It makes up 78% of the atmosphere, and it’s in these tiny micro bubbles, in my Starbucks ‘Nitro-Cold Brew.’ And yes, this episode is sponsored by Starbucks. They challenged me to liquify n…
What will it take to save the savanna elephant? | Podcast | Overheard at National Geographic
Foreign. The way that these elephants use this landscape is something that has been learned and passed on from generation to generation. This is Paula Kahumbu, National Geographic Explorer and elephant expert, on our new documentary series, Secrets of the…
The Stoic Guide To Overcoming The Desire To Escape Everything | STOICISM INSIGHTS
Isn’t it a bit strange that in this vast world we often stick to the same small corners where we were born? Here we are, on this huge spinning globe, and many of us never venture far from where our journey began. Think about it: how often do we find ourse…
How Coca Leaves Become Cocaine | Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller
[music playing] [speaking spanish] I’m not going to lie, it’s always a rush getting access to these clandestine worlds. The cocaine pit, the starting point for such a storied black market trade, ranks up there. But as the reporter high wears off, I realiz…
Beaver for Bolts | Live Free or Die
One of those days were the amenities so hot that the air is sweating. Well, it’s about 20 degrees above room temperature. I tell my glance at the river, I’m thinking, I sure would like to go down here to enjoy some of that cold water. There’s no rest for…