During a video-shooting for an upcoming tourism project in Iceland, Germanys leading and frontier-pushing extreme kayaker Adrian Mattern managed to first descent the impressive Markarfljótsgljúfur waterfall.
The falls have been scouted before by several groups of kayakers over the years but no one stepped up to the challenge.
After examining the falls for a solid time, the young German and his fellow kayaking partner Evan Garcia (who followed down the falls shortly after Adrian) the two decided to get changed, set up a safety system in case things go wrong and return to the falls, take a last inspection and make their final call.
Mattern decided to step up to the challenge and walked up to the flatwater above the waterfall, preparing to run this drop.
Adrian comes to the lip, places his stroke and flys of the 65-70-foot-tall waterfall.
Usually with a waterfall that size the kayaker would try to set his kayak up as vertical as possible in order to have minimum resistance when he impacts in order to prevent injuries. Mattern comes off with a big stroke and his kayak is falling fairly flat but shortly before impacting his kayak reconnects with a rock in the waterfall which sets him up for a perfect entry angle of his kayak.
A few seconds after he reappears on the left side of the falls, far away from the dangerous right side and claims a successful descent.
The extreme wide angle of the GoPro makes the fall look smaller and distorted, the downstream camera gives the full look of the rapid and its sheer size.