House Rock Rapid - Umkomaas

House Rock comes up very soon after 5&6. The river swings left and the rapid is easy to identify by a distinct, house-size rock on river right.

When the river level is high, House Rock becomes one of the more challenging rapids on this section. There are two parts to House Rock.

Firstly, the river gets constricted as it drops between large boulders. This is before the "house-rock" landmark. Here the gradient here is actually not very significant and as a result massive holes form when the river rises, and unlike other steeper sections they don't become "washed out". A hole left of centre starts becoming a threat once the river gets to about 1.7m and becomes nastier the higher it rises. 

 You have two choices in big water.

Option 1: Keep extreme left, literally an inch from the Hippo type rock on your left with good boat speed. This is a good option if you are uncertain of your exact line as the hippo rock is a very good landmark. Be prepared however at levels over 2m to punch through what is still a very big wave.

Option 2: Skirt the hole on the right, turning sharp left as you do so in order to avoid a significant set of waves, leading into another hole on you right. This a good line but is it very narrow in high water and if you get it wrong prepare for a big swim!

In low water there is only one choice, which is an easy line down the centre.

Part two of the rapid starts immediately after the house-rock, and is your typical rock-garden type drop, except that it is preceded by some nasty rock formations on river right. Unless you know your racing line here, your best option is to look for the deepest channel through the boulder garden left of centre. 

Video Footage

This video footage was taken when the river was at 1.5m at Hela Hela.