These days whitewater kayakers keep running bigger and bigger waterfalls. The escalation in waterfall attempts has accelerated over the last few years, but the number of injuries has been swept under the carpet. But eventually there is some accounting. Here's an interesting article summing up some of the recent waterfall activity and its price. At some point, falling from a great height is no longer a matter of skill, but rather of guts, or perhaps madness.

While Jesse Coombs nailed Oregon’s 101-foot Abiqua Falls in March, it came at the cost of a collapsed lung. Ten days later, world waterfall record holder Tyler Bradt, who ran 186-foot Palouse Falls a year earlier, ran it and broke his back, sidelining him at least for the first half of the season. Yup... running waterfalls is serious business, where even the best are often at the mercy of fate’s hands. The rest of the story...