| USA. Kayaker plummets 110 feet down Superior Falls |
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| Thursday, 13 April 2006 | |
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Watersports news: Sports Illustrated has called him the best kayaker in the world and now Tao Berman has chalked up another first as he, already aboard his kayak, was dropped from a helicopter into the Montreal River just above Superior Falls. From that point he raced over the rocky cascade squeezed within a 190-foot canyon, rapidly dropping 110 feet to the base of the canyon several yards from Lake Superior. The 27 year old Seattle paddler has already racked up an impressive record as a member of the U.S. Freestyle team and with a record waterfall drop that got him into the Guinness Book of World Records at 98.4 feet. Berman set his sights on Hurley located in Wisconsin's Iron County, adjacent to Lake Superior and Michigan's Upper Peninsula because of an abundance of waterfalls. During April, Hurley is a sleepy town, resting after the huge ski and snowmobile season where their unique micro-climate nets them an average annual snowfall topping 200 inches. Yet now as the snow pack rapidly melts and spring rains fall, the rivers become engorged and waterfalls roar like at no other time during the year. Within a half-hour of downtown Hurley, people discover public access to some 30 waterfalls, including six of Wisconsin's 10 tallest cascades. For the last several days, the site around Superior Falls swarmed with CBS Television crews from Los Angeles producing a half hour "Stunt Junkies" program for the Discovery Channel that will air later this spring. More than 10 cameras were strategically placed to capture Berman's fete, including one mounted on his own helmet. The waterfalls around in the greater Hurley area all flow northward to Lake Superior, the world's largest freshwater lake. The area is unique in Wisconsin. One might say you're well beyond the dairy part of the dairy state when you reach the ancient Penokee Mountains, vast forests, hidden canyons and remote waterfalls. |
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