Oregon Man Conquers Niagara Falls!!! 1

Niagara Falls, New York April 1 2010 (AP) Early this morning Niagara Falls was conquered for the very first time. With over a hundred years of history and mankind trying to survive these falls in their homemade barrels and other contraptions, the mighty Niagara has now been beaten by a modern day Daredevil. The biggest difference here is that this Daredevil took his boat up and over the top of this mighty force of nature.

Glenn Hall does not seem like the kind of person that one would normally associate as a Daredevil, he is quiet and reserved by nature.

He lives in Roseburg Oregon with his wife and five children where he hosts an Outdoors television show called "Hawg Quest" that highlights Northwest fishing and hunting.

One of the shows largest sponsors, the Wooldridge Boat Company provided Glenn with one of their jet boats (Sleds) which are specially made to tame the rough & wild Northwest Rivers. Glenn has become a very good pilot of his Sled and lately he has been looking for new challenges.

"What brought about this idea for the Niagara challenge was a recent visit that I had made to a Roseburg Army & Navy Surplus store, I was digging around and saw a couple of large metal containers back in a dark corner of the shop".

The proprietor helped me pull these out into the light where up on close inspection, I discovered these were two JATO rockets that are used to assist large military aircraft take off with large loads.

Glenn also stated "I have always been very happy with the power that my "rude" (Evinrude Outboard motor) was putting out, but I really needed something special that would take me vertical".

"My friend Tom who does the music for the show helped me mount these rockets with the best hardware we could find down at the nearby Home Depot store."

"My wife and kids were also getting curious about all that tinkering we were doing out in my driveway, but I convinced them I was experimenting with some kind of new Fishing Radar." "After the two days of insulation, I knew that the secret was going to be harder to keep and I called my cameraman Taj and told him to have his gear ready to go for the next morning, I figured I would have a long drive and plenty of time to convince him of my idea."

"He finally came around to the idea about midway on our trip after I explained to him that he would not have to film the adventure from inside the boat and he could set up his equipment on shore."
 

Glenn gives one final wave to the crowd assembled at the Boat Ramp 

Glenn's onboard camera captures this spectacular shot!!!  

"Taj was also worried about a police boat stopping us but I explained to him that the police boats were located mostly above the falls to keep the barrel jumpers from coming down."

"So we arrived at the falls yesterday afternoon and slept in the truck last night at the boat ramp parking lot, I don’t think either of us got more than a couple hours of sleep because of all the excitement."

"I was up and ready to go at daybreak but Taj convinced me to wait for the news organizations to show up to document this event, apparently he worked out a deal that the local news crews could only use still cameras and that we would retain the rights to all the video, which  I have been told is Spectacular."

"So I eased the boat away from the ramp around 9 AM EST and double checked all my systems, everything was a go so I waved to the crowd at the launch and slowly motored up the river to give Taj some time to run up and set up by the falls."

The Boat nears the crest of the falls as history is about to be made!!! 

"While I was waiting on Taj, I got a chance to put on my lucky swim shorts just in case I had to go for a swim, I also called the wife and let her know what I was up to, she screamed at me over my cell phone and was very concerned about my personal safety until I told her that the life insurance payment had been paid for the month."

"I then got the go ahead call from Taj, we were go for takeoff so I slammed down the throttle all the way on the rude and headed straight into a huge cloud of cold mist at full speed."

"I had no idea where I was until I felt the bow rising sharply and the rude was starting to bog down."

"So at that split second I popped the corks on the JATO bottles and she kicked real hard like a Mule and suddenly got very Squirrelly, I had to get all up on that wheel and muscle that baby skyward for what seemed like an eternity, then suddenly I blew out of mist and up and over the top of falls."

Glenn summed up his adventure this way "This whole experience kind of reminded me of what it must be like to be shot out of a Canon, it really kicked my butt."

When asked if he would ever try something like this again Glenn responded "Why not, what do you have in mind?"

At this point the release date for the video has not been announced and Glenn & Taj are weighing their options on how to market this valuable footage, Taj also hinted that you might be able to view this event’s video at your local theater in the not to distant future.