Achilles Heel

Achilles starts with technical entry through chunky granite boulders. There are lines on the right and the middle through the entry and they merge partway through the rapid. Here, with all the current back together, the river charges downstream and to the left. Water is pushed hard right toward the sloping, river right rock wall where a vertical drop is hidden on the outside corner. There's a pushy but non-retentive hole at the bottom right here, and it was once feared by all boaters. It's still enough to cause excitement, and most boaters angle left and paddle hard to avoid the hidden vertical drop along the wall and its hole. But others are now setting up to jump the hole on the right, which is harder to do than it appears: you really have to aim and charge hard for the right wall (but don't actually reach the wall or you're likely to land on a small rock shelf).

If needed, there is a rough dirt road that connects the river bar here to Salmon River Road on river left.

Achilles Heel is named for an incident involving kayaker Peter Sturges, the founder of Otter Bar Lodge Kayak School, in the early 1980s. Paddling a pointy-nosed Perception Mirage, Peter pitoned in the bouldery entrance to the rapid and his heel slid beneath the footbrace in the kayak, tearing his Achilles tendon. Ironically, Peter's paddling partner that day was Don Banducci, the owner of Yakima, which made the footbraces. The rapid had been known as Screaming Left Turn until this incident, but that name now seems to be forgotten. Commercial rafters sometimes call this Cataract Rapid, a name not used by other boaters.