Profile: Tao Berman

During my stay, he was a total class act, a quote machine, and one of the most fun and motivating people I’ve ever been around. His close friends heap praise upon him for his loyalty. He also started a retirement fund for his mother, is involved in the anti-drug Natural High program, and appears at local elementary schools to challenge students to set positive goals. “I think people overlook that he’s very caring,” says Osho. It’s hard to imagine a bad part.

“Well, sometimes he asks for it,” says friend and competitor Pat Keller. At the age of 19, when he still had a little baby fat on his face, his clean descent of Johnston Falls was videotaped by Link. Berman, Knight, Link, Josh Bechtel, Shannon Carroll, and others were road-tripping through the Banff, Alberta, area looking for big drops when they found Johnston Falls. They estimated that it was shorter than Oregon’s 78-foot Sahalie Falls, run only by Carroll and considered by some the world-record waterfall descent. Berman climbed to the top of Johnston and tossed a throw rope over the edge, revealing that it was actually much higher than Sahalie. The crew had finally found their Mount Everest.

To test the drop, Berman chucked a log over the edge, which got stuck in an undercut, removing everyone’s belief that the falls was runnable. Everyone but Berman, who quietly told Knight that he thought he could run it. “I tried to talk him out of it,” said Knight, “but my influence didn’t seem to matter.”

By this time, Carroll’s interest had been piqued, and she hauled her boat to the top. A short time passed before the crew spotted it flying over the edge and crashing into the rock wall on the right. It was only a probe boat—Carroll wasn’t in it.

Her kayak’s unfavorable landing did little to deter Berman, and he signaled a thumbs-up to the others below. A crowd of nervous tourists began gathering as Berman studied his line from the edge. Knight was steadying himself in the pool below when he looked up and saw Berman running the falls. He tweaked a rock flake near the bottom and kissed his deck to prevent his face from being grated off by the left-side rock wall. After exploding into the pool, he rolled up and smiled.

Berman had his hit, and he quickly took to defending it. After completing an on-camera interview with Link, Berman darted back up to the top, where Carroll was preparing to run the falls.

“He kept saying things like, ‘Don’t run it. Don’t run it. It’s dangerous and I care about you,’ ” says Carroll. “We argued and he messed with my head, so I wasn’t in the right mindframe. I couldn’t run it.” Carroll walked down, sobbing. “It was really inhibiting for me to paddle with him. I regret that I put my guard down.”

Berman may have truly feared for Carroll’s safety, but if another paddler, especially a woman, had run Johnston moments after he did, Berman may not be the celebrity he is today.

“That is the whole root of his personality,” says kayaker Jason Hale. “If I had 20 kayakers to choose from, he would not be one of them. He’s not a team player.”

Link’s footage of the record-setting huck was broadcast on an episode of Dateline NBC. Since then, other kayakers have gone bigger, but determining the official waterfall record holder isn’t as simple as timing a 100-meter race. In 2002, Tim Gross ran Oregon’s 101-foot Abiqua Falls, and Ed Lucero dropped 105.6 feet down the Northwest Territories’ Alexandra Falls the following year. Both kayakers, however, swam. In 2004, David Grove ran Oregon’s Metlako Falls—which has been measured at 101 feet—without swimming. However, the first 15 or so feet is about a 30-degree slope.

The steeper and narrower Johnston is arguably the most intimidating waterfall ever cleaned, but Metlako’s highest measurement lends some credence to Grove’s claim to the biggest waterfall descent. Berman doesn’t want to let it go.

“If you include sliding waterfalls, I’d still have the record.” While filming Twitch V in 2004, Berman rocketed himself down British Columbia’s Lacey Falls, a sloping, ankle-deep cascade that slithers 300 feet into the Pacific Ocean. Berman slid into the flow 180 feet above the sea and reached 40 miles per hour when he boofed violently off a rocky protuberance near the bottom and landed in the saltwater. A miscalculation in the tidal surge left only three feet of water between him and the barnacle-covered boulders lurking just below his target, severely denting his boat. “That was just on surface impact,” Berman says. “Imagine if I’d hit the rocks at that speed.”

The extraordinary stunt was not part of a river exploration, but it created striking footage that the mainstream media could wrap its brain around. “For Tao, it’s not a lifestyle, it’s a job,” Hale says. “He should get into stocks and bonds. He’d make a lot more money.”

“I used to live out of the back of my truck, eating ramen, just because I loved to paddle,” Berman says. “Now I make a lot more money, and some people want to say that I’m only doing it for the money. I’m still paddling all the time. The only thing that’s changed is my salary.”

When we arrive at the top of Punchbowl, Berman takes off his sandals and walks directly toward a 70-foot cliff. Jagged boulders below separate him from his target, a pool in the West Fork of the Hood River. He pauses briefly at the edge, the same type of pause a normal person makes while driving through an unmarked intersection. Then he’s gone.