Tappan Falls
III
Rapid Rating
58.44
River Mileage
About Tappan Falls
Immediately following Tappan One, you’ll come around a slight right-hand bend and you’ll see a horizon line. This is Tappan Falls. At all water flows, you’ll want to go right. To scout, pull over at the small sandbar on river right just above the falls. If you haven’t seen it before, scouting is suggested as you’ll clearly see the chute you need to hit. If you go center, the drop becomes quite steep and the hole is recirculating which can easily surf an oar boat. There is no reason to go over there, nor is it hard to hit the correct river right channel, so again, if you have any doubts or are new to the rapid, just do a quick scout.
At low flows, it’s important to not go too far right, as rocks will begin to appear that are immediately below the drop.
This is a now-famous video, perhaps the most viewed of any Middle Fork video, showing you a center run (bad).
This is pretty unusual, but here is a low water run where they went too far right and ended up flipping off the low water rocks. Video description reports no injuries, fortunatley.
A ducky hitting the right line perfectly.
Low water showing off the rocks to avoid just downstream of the drop.