[rain dripping]
MATT: It's December 14th.
It's been raining for 14 hours straight now.
It's a little wet, even by our standards.
NARRATOR: All right,
it wasn't the brightest idea we ever had,
to hike here in the Columbia Gorge
with rain coming down an inch an hour.
Come to think of it, it was plain stupid.
It's a pretty ugly day.
Even if you repel down to the one spot down there
that you could land, you wouldn't be able to see anything.
So how do you get set up to get back out?
This is intense.
That's a lot of water.
NARRATOR: Yep. You heard right.
Matt Bannon and his friends were going to repel into that,
on purpose,
and travel downstream to do some exploring.
It's called Canyoneering.
They said it'd make a great story.
Of course, that was back in the summer.
We decided to meet in December when there'd be more water.
And well, here we were.
[water rushing]
I'm thinking today,
we're just gonna kind of hike around
and hike back out.
I'm not going in there.
[water rushing]
That scares me just to look at it.
NARRATOR: There is a point when you're so wet
it just doesn't matter anymore.
We reached that point
the moment we stepped out of the car
MATT: I feel like
if you want to call yourself an outdoor enthusiast
you gotta be miserable at least once a year.
[chuckles] So this, this is my shot.
We were saying maybe 30 to 50%
of our trips end up just being scouting trips.
Oh well, we're used to it.
NARRATOR: All we could do now is dry out and wait.
But by August,
we were either brave enough or dumb enough to try again.
So we set out to get another secret stash of waterfalls.
[water rushing]
MATT: Well, we know it's a river
and we know it's a slot canyon.
And we know that there's seven waterfalls
that we're gonna be going through today.
And other than that, we don't know a whole lot.
NARRATOR: It's in Matt and Mike's DNA
to find adventure simply by following a trail
as far as it'll go, and making up the rest.
They do have a knack though, for finding hidden gems.
We came ready to follow wherever they led.
MIKE: And as you think the trails
go to all the best stuff
and they do go to some good stuff,
but it's amazing how much has no trail to it.
[water flowing]
I'm gonna go right up here and see what we got first.
[water rushing]
I'm sick of all this beauty.
All the pretty water.
[indistinct] and all.
NARRATOR: Matt's sarcasm aside,
it seemed we found not just a pretty place,
but the right place to begin our Canyoneering adventure.
There was no obvious way up, but Mike had a plan.
The camera crew would come down here
and then we would wrap down the second trellis.
And there's a really good vantage point in there
to video as we're coming over that fall.
NARRATOR: That moppy-headed guy with a concerned look
that's Michael Bendixen,
one of our Field Guide videographers.
He'd have to do everything Matt and Mike do,
but with his camera rolling.
No easy feat.
Then you'd go in.
Yeah, and then I'd like you to stop.
And then I'll wrap down.
NARRATOR: Obviously not one of our easier stories
to pull off.
We have to figure out routes and shooting angles,
and do more than our share of bushwhacking.
[leaves rustling]
MATT: Looks awesome.
This is it.
This is destination.
[water rushing]
NARRATOR: From here, it'd be all downhill.
But for Michael, who's been with Field Guide
just a few months,
this was also an initiation of sorts.
I'm just gonna be going down there in a second.
So I, I need to protect myself,
but I need to protect some expensive gear too.
Kinda steep. [water rushing]
[chains rattle]
We're gonna throw kind of two ends of the rope down
and it's called a double rope repel.
And then when we get down to the bottom,
we'll end up pulling one end of the rope
and pull it down behind us.
So once we do this,
we're pretty much committed to the canyon.
This is the start of the trip, and off we go.
[water rushing]
Rope.
There you go.
[water rushing]
MATT: It's crazy.
You can't hear anything.
All you can see is kind of what's right in front of you.
Woo. [laughing]
Yeah, you're kind of in your own little world
right at that moment.
[water rushing]
MIKE: Nice job, Matt!
[laughing] [water rushing]
Oh, geeze.
It's just a hoot to get wet and, and feeling the force
of the water on your shoulders, on your head.
You don't have to, but what the heck, you're here.
Enjoy it.
When I told my coworkers what I was doing today,
one of 'em asked if I was gonna be bringing
my wife and kids along today.
That's when I knew that they just, they don't get it.
And then when, when you get back to work on Monday,
they ask, how was your hike?
Well, it was a little more than a hike, but it was good.
[water rushing] [indistinct chatter]
MIKE: Nice job.
Go ahead and pull the rope.
MATT: You pull your rope and there can be times
when you wish you hadn't, but you did.
So you find a way.
Oh, Charlie, wait
NARRATOR: The best way out now,
the only way really, was down river.
With the canyon, of course,
your route is a river,
but you don't know what's around the next, the next corner.
You have absolutely no idea.
And so you don't know if you've got a short drop
or a big drop and you're gonna rig it off of a rock,
or you're gonna make your anchor of a tree.
So there's just a lot more dynamic.
NARRATOR: When it's not pouring rain and cold,
the damp confines of hidden slot canyons like this
are undeniably seductive.
For our photographers, Todd Sonflieth,
working here just inches from a hundred foot drop,
as well as Michael,
capturing this place proved challenging to say the least.
[water rushing]
It's always tough,
because you gotta know exactly where to be
before you get in there.
And there's just tons of water spraying on my face
and on the lens, you should get close.
I mean, show what it's like for bird's eye view, you know?
What it's like for their view.
So that's kind of our goal, I think.
Definitely gotta get close.
[water splashes] [laughing]
It's a little slippery.
It's just hard work to get here, I think.
I don't think a lot of people like to work hard.
You know, you have to hike up these crazy trails.
Bushwhack, set up rope work.
I don't mind a little bit of hard work
to have a little bit of fun.
NARRATOR: Most hikers have a goal in mind,
a viewpoint, hot spring, meadow.
On this trip, the goal was this;
a hundred foot high masterpiece of water.
The lore of getting into that waterfall
keeps these guys feeling for lack of a better word, alive.
Even as they risk death.
It's pretty safe.
But when you're on a rope,
if something does go wrong, the consequences are drastic.
You know, there is no middle ground.
You're either fine or you're dead.
NARRATOR: This waterfall was high
even by Matt and Mike's standards, a bit hairy, even.
At the same time,
it embodied the dance between danger and beauty
that is Canyoneering.
I'm not showing this to my mom.
I can tell you that.
That's probably seriously one of the nicest repels
we've done in a canyon.
It's just perfect.
It's a vertical face and the water is great.
And I just wanna go right back up there and do it again.
It brings a big smile to my face.
NARRATOR: For Michael, getting down this one was brutal.
Not because it was difficult, which it was,
but because his camera stopped working.
It was just so beautiful coming down.
I saw these shots as I was coming down, and it just,
I didn't have my tool.
So couldn't get what I wanted to get.
But you know, that's one of those times
you didn't want it to be ugly, 'cause, agh!
Fired up. Ah! [water splashing]
NARRATOR: Everyone here endured a lot
to get to this point,
to this beautiful pool at the base
of a beautiful waterfall,
and a beautiful piece of forest.
A few missed closeups wouldn't matter.
We'd seen plenty.
Though Matt, an accountant by day,
was counting the days 'til he could do it all over again.
I do taxes. [chuckles]
So I need this.
Yeah, I do.
I need to get out sometimes and suffer.
I think you have a different outlook on life
when you're sitting in your office, you're doing paperwork,
or whatever, and you know that you've been somewhere
and done something that no one else in the office
has done or even understands.
I like that.
I like knowing I've been places like this.