[water rushing]
- [Rafael] Because it's like jacked with adrenaline,
your brain, it just starts going faster, you know?
And all of a sudden you can process all these things,
and it's kind of this crazy like, slow-mo experience
where you're just slowly falling with the water.
- [Narrator] Lots of people like kayaking.
And some even enjoy running whitewater.
But then there's Rafael Ortiz.
He doesn't just seek out Class Five rapids.
He heads straight for what most avoid at all costs,
massively steep waterfalls.
The tallest one he's run is 189 feet tall.
That's like paddling off the 20th floor of a building,
the Leaning Tower of Pisa, or the Cinderella Castle
at the Magic Kingdom.
- I see a waterfall and I see a line.
I see like, opportunity, a new challenge, you know,
instead of just this beautiful phenomenon of nature and,
it's kind of a blessing but also a curse at the same time
'cause if it speaks to you, it's hard not to wanna do it.
Always people think I'm crazy.
And I must be crazy 'cause everybody says so.
- [Narrator] Ortiz takes his death-defying stunts
to truly absurd levels, and he does it just for fun.
- [Rafael] I watched a video when I was a kid
of a guy going over a waterfall on fire
and I always wanted to try it.
I feel like that's one of my weaknesses.
I always look at crazy things and in my head
I think they're gonna be easy.
I'm always very optimistic like that.
You know, when it actually comes down to doing it,
project like that, I was like, "You know,
"we'll just hire some professionals
"and put a bunch of gasoline on me
"and wear the right safety and just run,
"go over a waterfall in my kayak on fire."
- [Narrator] He even once traded his kayak in
for a novelty inflatable toy shaped like a lobster,
just for the pictures and the laughs.
- I drove up to this 70 foot-tall waterfall,
stood over the lip, you know, just got ready.
Jumped into the water, spinning 180 degrees in the air.
Landed, controlled myself, looked down.
Big fist pump at the lip.
- [Narrator] And once, Ortiz and his friends
set up a whole night shoot with giant LED lights
and a generator, just because he thought it would look cool.
- [Rafael] We basically stayed in the forest
through the night till four or five in the morning,
freezing, and running this waterfall at night
with little headlamps.
Were just doing it 'cause it was cool, making it happen.
- [Narrator] Ortiz's love of rivers started young.
He was rafting around eight years old
and got a kayak for his birthday when he was 14.
- So, eastern Mexico, the state of Veracruz
where I learned how to kayak, just happens to be
one of the best places on the planet
for waterfall descending in kayaks.
You know, few years into my paddling career,
I realized that my backyard was perfect for waterfalls.
So I started getting into running waterfalls,
you know, without really any instruction.
I just started watching videos online,
ordering VHS tapes and seeing how these guys were going
over these waterfalls in their kayaks.
And I just started trying that in my backyard.
It wasn't pretty at the start.
I still remember the experience
running my very first tall waterfall.
It was this 40-foot drop on the Xico river in Veracruz
and it came out of the bottom, it was a big hit,
I came out seeing stars, actually broke my paddle.
Looked back at the waterfall and I was like,
"This is crazy." [laughs]
And yeah, the next thing I knew, I was going all in
on this new sport that I quickly got addicted to.
You know, the first time you do it,
everything happens super quick.
But once you start doing this over and over again
and you start really kind of feeling it, you know,
you start getting better at it.
Things just start happening a little bit slower.
[yelling]
- [Narrator] Ortiz has spent the last two decades
pushing the limits on this sport,
one that offers very little room for error.
Ortiz has seen his fair share of injuries
and has watched his friends come close to death.
Back in 2013, he was kayaking
with his friend Gerd Serrasolses in Mexico.
Serrasolses went over before Ortiz
but got swept under the falls.
[suspenseful music]
- I was behind him, I went over the waterfall.
When I came out, I didn't see anyone.
As I looked down the river a little further downstream,
I saw one of my friends pulling my friend's body
out of the water, and he was completely,
just floppy, you know, he was pretty lifeless.
He was purple.
Very colorless.
He was not breathing.
Think we must have worked on him for a full three minutes
of these exhausting compressions,
just taking turns, mouth to mouth, shouting, you know,
and it was just this crazy blur.
And eventually, three minutes in, he goes [gasping]
and takes a breath.
As kayakers, because we're always in these remote places,
we have to learn how to rescue each other, you know?
As a kayaker that dedicates to pushing the limits
and facing risk on a daily basis, you know,
you always kinda question when are you gonna
finally confront death.
- [Narrator] Surviving these drops requires
a lot of experience, intuition, and a locked-in technique.
Because in the end, you gotta land safely.
And that means going over the lip with the right speed
and the right form.
- It all kinda comes down to two things.
One of them is speed.
More speed translates into more angle.
So more of a flat landing.
Less speed translated into more of a vertical entrance.
And then the other thing, number two,
is the stroke that you take at the lip.
You know, as you're going over,
you have to be taking one or two paddle strokes
to correct your angle.
If it's a large waterfall, anything above 40 feet,
you wanna make sure that you're as vertical as possible.
- [Narrator] Instead of just free falling over the edge,
Ortiz uses the speed of the water and his paddle strokes
to position himself to land safely.
For smaller waterfalls, he wants to land
on top of the water.
- Let's see, if under 40 feet, for a waterfall,
you actually wanna be coming in, ideally,
at like a 45-degree angle, and right at the lip,
I'm gonna look down, lock my landing,
but then I wanna take a pretty long steady stroke
that kinda lifts the bow of my kayak,
so that way I can kinda lock in that 45-degree angle.
If you do it right, you're able to just kinda
skim the surface and then resurface pretty quickly.
- [Narrator] But for waterfalls taller than 45 feet,
he wants to go over vertically,
so when he dives into the water at the bottom,
he slices into it with as little impact as possible.
Getting that vertical position means going over the edge
with less speed, so that the front of the boat falls
and points down.
- If it's a taller waterfall, once I'm in the current,
I'm actually, even like back paddling sometimes
a little bit, you know, I'm kinda way more conservative
with my speed, 'cause that, along with the stroke
that I take at the lip, is gonna define the angle.
If it's a large waterfall, anything above 40 feet,
you wanna make sure that you're as vertical as possible.
So as you're free falling,
you're not just closing your eyes and shouting.
In the end it all comes down to the impact.
So whenever you enter the water
down at the bottom of the waterfall,
you basically wanna be as aerodynamic as possible,
or aquadynamic, and you just wanna kinda
become as slim as you can.
You wanna make sure that you either throw your paddle
and hug your boat tightly, or like, I usually tuck my paddle
to the side and then I use my right arm
to protect myself and brace for impact.
If you forget about this, often you end up
taking a paddle in the face and can result in stitches,
like I've probably had more than five times
in my paddling career.
- [Narrator] Then there's finding a good waterfall.
Ortiz's search has taken him around the world.
- [Rafael] Thing about waterfall descending is that
every waterfall is completely different.
And in order to find that dream waterfall
that you've pictured, you have to find it.
You know, we do a lot of Google Earth, you know,
satellite imaging, looking at these rivers
that have the right amount of steepness.
Try to find information about the volume of water.
And then if everything lines up, you go explore the river
and you might get lucky and find the next huge waterfall.
- [Narrator] And when he finds a good river, he studies it.
- First before you go into a waterfall,
you wanna look at it from every angle.
You wanna do your due diligence and study it correctly
to make sure it's good decision to start with.
Every river is different.
There's 1000 different factors.
Every country, every area is different,
it has a different kind of rock.
So you're either talking about basalt, you know,
a rock that's like fairly crumbly
but creates these really nice waterfalls.
Or you're talking about limestone, you know,
this waterfall that's a lot more solid.
The other big ingredient into the formula is steepness,
you know, 'cause you're looking
for a certain kind of gradient
but it really relates to the amount of water.
So you're either talking about a river that
is a small trickle of water, or you're talking about,
you know, a large river that's a big beast, you know,
that comes with a lot of other factors and a lot of risks.
And before I get into my kayak I'm looking at the current
and I'm kind of visualizing myself, step number one.
I'm scouting the waterfall.
I'm studying it and I know if it's a waterfall
that I have to for sure go in vertical.
- [Narrator] This isn't just a physical sport
coupled with good gear for Ortiz.
He needs to trust his intuition.
- Lot of it comes down to your own experience, you know?
And your own trial and error.
Your own understanding, even, your own mindset.
Because a lot of it is mental.
There's definitely a physical aspect to it
but a lot of it is a really big mental game
'cause you're dealing with a lot of stress,
a lot of fear, all this adrenaline.
And then just kinda finding your own zen, you know?
Finding your own sweet spot where you can
kind of find that calm.
And it's kinda cool, you know, I think it's,
it's almost like a superpower, adrenaline in the end
I believe is, you know, the most powerful superpower
that we could have. [group cheering]
- [Narrator] Ortiz has been kayaking professionally
for over 10 years, for companies like Red Bull
and Jackson Kayaks.
But it's not always about the competition for him.
As he's getting older, Ortiz's focus is shifting a little.
- I've definitely been moving
from the really tall waterfalls
to other kinds of more creative projects.
I've also moved a lot recently
towards environmental projects.
A couple years ago I started doing river cleanups.
Feel like as kayakers we have the opportunity
for being on these beautiful rivers
and often we just find garbage, you know,
and find how human beings are slowly destroying
these beautiful natural environments.
The other aspect that I also try to help push is
avoiding and taking down dams in the world because
they basically destroy the environment.
- [Narrator] Starting a family also changed his perspective.
- You know, now that I have a family and,
just had a daughter a year ago and, you know,
my life is definitely getting a little more complicated
than it was, even four years ago.
'Cause all of a sudden, you know, from making decisions
100% for myself and deciding if I'm willing
to put my life in the line, thinking about myself.
Now I think about my daughter first, you know,
and if anything was to happen to myself,
it's more about her not having a dad.
So it's definitely changed me even just looking at danger,
even just standing in front of a waterfall
and looking at risk with almost different eyes.
- [Narrator] But nothing will stop him from kayaking.
Even though it seems absurd to find peace
while going over a waterfall,
that's exactly why Ortiz loves it.
- Once you get inside your kayak and you close it up,
you peel out into the current,
it's kinda cool because there's no way back.
You know, it kinda, fear kinda disappears
because you're so focused on the task.
And then you just kinda start flowing with the river.
You just kinda zone in into this one task.
There's nothing else in the world, problems disappear.
That's it, like, the moment.
[water rushing] [group cheering]