Oh Be Joyful, a heavenly creek just outside of Crested Butte, Colorado is undoubtedly one of the most classic–and most aesthetically pleasing–pieces of whitewater in North America. Several big waterfalls and multiple slides punctuate a fantastic river run framed by the Colorado Rockies. But as with any piece of good whitewater, weird things can happen on Oh Be Joyful. Like this:
The final slide on OBJ is a multi-tiered behemoth called Avalanche. Grady Flynn looks as though he has a solid line through the beast but then something unthinkable happens–his kayak actually explodes in half. Perhaps it was faulty plastic or maybe the integrity of the boat had already been compromised from a previous incident, or maybe it was just worn down (kayakers have a way of destroying gear). Whatever the reason, the kayak explodes into two pieces. It looks as though Flynn is kind of struggling to exit the front half of the boat. He looks pretty rocked sitting there, after. You can’t blame him for trying to process what just went down, though. That was fairly surreal.
