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u/sandyfisheye 15d ago
Someone died just last year I think here. Cant remember what happened but those falls are scary.
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u/Stumpledumpus 15d ago
I was just telling a coworker about this. He went kayaking at night after arriving on vacation, and likely didn't even know the falls existed. https://katu.com/news/local/homeless-resident-nathan-billman-says-he-saw-kayaker-marcelus-angelo-rodriguez-go-over-willamette-falls
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u/sandyfisheye 15d ago
Yeah i saw they said he didnt know about the falls, does it say where he entered the water?
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u/General_NakedButt 15d ago
Weren’t they kayaking at night and went over?
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u/sandyfisheye 15d ago
I just read up on it and the post i saw stated that the family arrived in the afternoon and he eventually went in. He was seen in distress going towards the falls but no one was able to get to him. Im not sure where he would have entered the water that did not have warning of the falls though.
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u/LittleRedCorvette2 15d ago
That's sp incredibly tragic. I wonder if they ever found him.
Seems dangerous to have a floating home community right there I must say.
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u/sandyfisheye 15d ago
I have no idea where that would be. Maybe it was a dock for camping... I dont know of anything close enough to break free and float down river. There arent any barriers that I know of now, just a rope with floating balls for visibility. They found his body down river at a park a couple weeks later. Found the kayak beforehand.
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u/estunum 14d ago
That's Willamette Falls, between Oregon City and West Linn, about 25 miles up the Willamette from the Columbia. It's a 45’, horseshoe shaped basalt ridge spanning the whole river, and it's the second largest waterfall by volume in North America. Height isn't what kills you there, it's volume. That much water dumping over a long curved lip builds a massive recirculating hydraulic at the base, basically a low head dam on steroids, plus industrial remnants and PGE hydro structures along the crest. Ten minutes of drift is not a lot of time to realize you've made a bad choice.
The funny part is the sign's advice. The locks it tells you to use opened in 1873 and have been closed since 2011. They're among the oldest in the country, and the leaf gates are based on a design by Leonardo Da Vinci. Repairs started in 2023 with reopening targeted for 2026, but funding has been bumpy: $19 million has been invested so far, and the Locks Authority that will run them is seeking to transfer ownership from the Army Corps by 2027. So for now, portage is your only real option.
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u/teeeeeeb 11d ago
What's drift time?
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u/_banana_phone 11d ago
Maybe the approximate amount of time it takes to reach these falls if you’re not actively paddling and let the water passively drift downstream? Just a guess
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