Mark Angel: White water icon navigates his last rapid

By Tom Peterson

I admired Mark Angel from afar until last Thursday.

I’d never seen him in person.

The White Water Salvage man is a Pacific Northwest icon in search and rescue circles, known for his ability to salvage boats in the worst of currents during the past five decades.

Many a torn family has turned to him when a son or daughter has gone missing in torrential waters.

A lineman by trade, he has taken troubleshooting to the next level when it comes to white water, utilizing lineman tools to recover boats and people silenced by rushing water. 

From my days as a river ranger, I saw his yellow and red Koffler jet boat on the Deschutes River. I had heard a tale of him using his jet motor to shoot river water onto wildfire flames on the banks of the Deschutes.  And while I worked from Deschutes River State Recreation Area, he recovered 15-year-old Caleb Justice and 26-year-old Johnathon Brett Mclean from the pool below White River Falls in July 2012. The drownings were heavy to deal with. The beauty of the falls often beckoned unsafe behavior by visitors.

Such is the case with white water - beautifully thrilling and equally dangerous.

And Mark was called in to provide closure in 2012 for the young men from the Vancouver-Camas area who had slipped and fallen into the pool below the falls.  He used a lineman’s hot stick and SCUBA gear to probe under basalt rock in zero visibility for the bodies in a pool below the falls. He found them 20 feet inside a cliff and 20 feet upstream from the base of the falls. They were in 15 feet of water.

“You can tell if it’s gravel, wood, aluminum or a body,” he said, noting the odor was the tell. 

It’s grim work, no doubt.

Mark is an island unto himself.

“I’m the only white water diver around,” he said. “If a family member asks you to help find their kid and you know you’re the only one, how do you say no.”

This Memorial Day a drift boat went down in White Horse rapids on The Deschutes River. Mark was hired by an insurance company to salvage the boat. He agreed to let me tag along after he tested me with several questions on the phone. As long as I agreed to write about proper lifejackets and safe boating, I was in. He would also need a review of the story. Mark, now 76 and living in Redmond, is undoubtedly the captain. 

I was also instructed to call his wife, Judy, to give her my contact information and an emergency phone number. 

We met at Henry’s Deli in Maupin at 8 a.m. on June 4th. He bought me and the rest of the volunteer crew breakfast before we launched. 

THE CREW

At breakfast, I met Mark’s wife Judy. A petite and cheerful woman with silver hair and beloved yellow lab named Chewy.  The Imperial River Company’s Rob Miles, with silver goatee and quick wit, had again volunteered to crew for Angel. Ultramarathon runner Brian Janecek, 43, of Hillsboro and his dad, Jerry Janeck, 73, of near Bend filled out the passenger log.

It was Jerry’s birthday, and it was his boat that sank. His Insurance company now held title to the vessel and was responsible for salvaging it from the river. But Janeck, an avid river man, was curious, and a phone call to Mark developed into an offer to come along on the trip for he and son, Brian. 

Still fresh were the father and son’s memories of losing their boat just 10 days earlier.

THE SINKINGS

“It was the first time I got it wet,” Jerry said of the brand new Clackacraft that now shivered in fast current on the bottom of the Deschutes just below Whitehorse Rapids.

“River, one; Jerry, zero,” quipped Rob in friendly banter before breakfast. “There’s not enough people like Jerry to keep us in business.” 

Jerry’s was the first boat to go down in the rapid in two years, Rob said. In other years, however, Whitehorse has gobbled multiple boats in a single season and drowned people as it drops at a notorious rate- 25 feet in the first 300 yards.

Mark had even sunk a jet boat near the spot in 2006 during the recovery of 17-year-old Danielle Hagler of Oregon City. Mark spent the majority of a week looking for Danielle just below “Oh Shit” rock.

Mark descended a 25-foot ladder placed behind the rock held by two men to go down into the river to find her. His mouth held a regulator hooked to  50 feet of airline attached to a SCUBA tank in his boat. 

“You can’t see in white water,” Mark said. “The air in the water kills physical light below it. Mark stepped down the ladder with the currents “throwing him all over the place.”

On his fourth try, he said he was able to get to the bottom.

“I made a mistake, he said. “Down there the current was noticeably easier. I took a quick step. It blew me straight down like I was shot out of a canon, and I hit a rock. I saw Danielle off to my right - pinned under the rock.”

Mark broke his right leg. He never told anyone for months. “I was in total darkness and the white water was over my head. While I sat there, my eyes adjusted. Mark said he could get within an inch of Danielle, but then the current wanted to blow him downstream. “I went back to the surface to go to shore to see about other options,” he said.

Mark said he lost his first boat that day when the outboard cut out and swamped in the rock and current.

He and the crew made it to shore, but the boat remained in the river. He bought a new boat the next day and returned to get Danielle.

He and his crew worked several day, and then dam operators upstream agreed to decrease the flow of the river 1,000 cubic feet per second.

“When they did that, I could walk down the ladder and tie a rope around Danielle,” he said. “I could not believe the difference. It took another week to get my boat off.”

And now the boat I was riding in was headed near the same section of the river. The words “Danielle’s Angel” hover in a halo above a SCUBA diver on the back of Mark’s boat. Her parents contributed to its purchase.

Jerry and Brian had also felt the buck of Whitehorse, just days before.

“We went into it hot,” Jerry said, noting he had been through the rapid on rafts multiple times. But this was his first in a drift boat. 

He had trouble maneuvering the boat into the right position, and they were too far river left. The Clackacraft hit “Can Opener”, a sharp boulder that sticks above the water. “We took on water in the back,” Jerry said. Ten inches of water poured into the boat floor, Brian said. Now loaded, it was impossible to move with any speed. Family friend Ryan Riggs and Brian began bailing. Time was up.

The boat slammed into “House Rock” 30 seconds later, and it filled completely with water. “We went into survival mode,” Jerry said.

Brian remembers seeing the “Fear No Rock” logo on the side of the boat as it went down.

The river water was 54 degrees. But all were wearing life jackets. Ryan and Jerry were able to stay with the boat. The gear and Brian were swept downstream. Jerry stuck a rock with one shoe and was able to hold, and he and Ryan scrambled up on it.

A Lake Oswego couple with a raft, rescued them from the rock. Ryan was now contemplating the death of his best friend. The couple took Ryan to shore so he could hike downriver to find Brian.

Downriver, Brian was in a “yardsale,” equipment floating all around him. He grabbed his dad's fly bag, and sunglasses, made a loop and put them around his arm. Then he grabbed the rubber tie down on their floating Yeti cooler and used it for buoyancy as he put his feet downstream to fend off rocks and protect his head. He saw his dad’s wading staff floating, and he grabbed it. Then he traded the Yeti for a floating seat cushion.

“I hit a lot of submerged rocks,” he said, noting he floated about two miles from the wreck. He made it to within 50 feet of shore and hit a gravel bar between two large rocks. “I locked in with the wading staff,” he said and stopped himself from moving. He waved to people on shore, but they were helpless to assist him. He could stay there, hoping a rafter would come through and take him to shore. Maybe his dad and Ryan would be down to help him, he thought. As more time passed, he imagined the situation upstream was dire. “Why would they not send a boat,” he thought. He wondered if his dad was in trouble. He stood there for an hour and 10 minutes contemplating his next move.

At the same time, Ryan had hiked downriver a mile and returned back to where Jerry was. Empty handed. No Brian. He was convinced Brian drowned. Downstream, Brian had a choice to make. Stay put and wait and risk hypothermia or choose to fight the rocks and current in a push toward the shore.

He pushed off, using his feet to bounce off rocks and propel him toward the bank. “I drug myself up,” he said of coming to shore. While his waders protected his legs they were heavy, partially filled with water. “I laid on some rocks and warmed up,” he said. Then he hiked upstream to find his friend and father. 

Some two and half hours after the sinking, Brian came into view of Ryan. 

Ryan gave me a huge hug,” he said. “He started sobbing.” Brian was relieved to see his father.

The three men broke up into two rafts. Brian and Ryan went with a  group to North Junction to make a phone call and find a ride back to Maupin. Jerry floated down the river with the couple from Lake Oswego retrieving equipment from the river banks. 

“People had stacked our stuff on the sides of the river,” Jerry said. “I can’t say enough good about this river community. The people are so gracious, one guy called me with my wallet.”

GETTING JERRY’S BOAT

We drove 21 miles upriver from Maupin to North Junction and encountered our first obstacle. A locked F350 Ford and tandem axle trailer were partially blocking Mark’s entryway into the river. 

Also, Mark needed permission to drive across the property to launch his boat. Moving the vehicle was quicker than moving people.

The Ford was pulled out of the way using a winch rope. And the trailer was moved. 

Then a half-hour of conversation was needed to persuade property owner Warner Munro to use the site.

“We need a long rope,” Mark said, directing items in and out of the boat. He picked out chain hoists and rope grabbers, looked through several ammunition boxes of tools, looking for air hoses for his air tank which propels pneumatic tools for drills and saws underwater.

He ensured he had the right hot sticks - 12-foot fiberglass sticks he uses to grab and direct ropes. 

Mark navigated the two miles upriver to where the boat was reported sunk. It was supposed to be a simpler recovery - reported in just three feet of water closer to the bank. 

It was not to be.

As we came around the river bend and up through the rapids around “Family Rock” we came into a large pool of swift water. The hull of the sunken boat could be seen in swift-moving current, set between several boulders, 25 feet of large boulder sitting on top of the river shelf.

Judy, Brian and Jerry were dropped at the bank and Mark and Rob went about the salvage.

Mark navigated upstream of the sunken boat about 200 feet. He had to face the bow upriver, throw and hook an anchor and then let slack out in the anchor line to ease the boat backward into position.   

“Rob, put it in,” Mark screamed over the sound of the 225-horse Mercury outboard.

“Have anchor, will travel,” Rob retorted and threw the anchor overboard.

“Work it down,” Mark called, telling Rob to let outline. “Put a single wrap on the cleat.”

The anchor failed to hook. They tried several times, pulling the anchor back up, boating upriver and throwing it over again. On the third try, the anchor grabbed and pulled the rope tight, keeping the bow upstream. Rob began letting the rope out as Mark guided the boat backward with the motor. 

This all may sound mundane, but at all times in a jet boat, your only way to navigate around the boat-crunching rocks is the use of the jet pump to put the boat in the right position. The jet pump must be protected at all times.  It is an impeller protected by a metal housing or shoe. If anything, a rope, rock stops that pump from working, you are dead in the water, and the river, within seconds, will send your boat careening into rocks or even worse, swamp it. Any host of bad outcomes are possible, especially in the current of the Deschutes which averages five miles per hour. That’s faster than the Colorado River.

Approaching the sunken vessel was especially dangerous as anchor and bowlines are still attached to the sunken boat and can flap up and foul the jet. 

Rob continued to let out line and Mark powered to the inside of two massive submerged boulders to come alongside the sunken boat.

A little more rope was then let out to get the exact position Mark wanted. The motor was idled in forward to hold the boat in place.

Mark looked over the gunwale, assessing. 

“What do you see,” I asked.

“There’s a boat,” he quipped.

Mark and Rob set up a ladder from the jet boat to the top of the sunken drift boat. They strapped it to the gunwale and a rail to hold it in place. Then Mark shinnied across the rungs and kneeled atop of the hull of the drift boat. He used his hot stick to thread a rope under the rear of it. But the current and depth made it impossible. He tried several times but to no avail. Mark came back on board the jet boat and started taking depth measurements with the hot stick. It was six- to nine-feet deep. He tried placing the ladder into the river alongside the boat, but the current pushed the feet downriver. Had the current not been so strong, Mark intended to go down it and attach ropes to the sunken boat.

Mark drove the jet boat back upriver and approached the sunken drift boat from the other side. There was no advantage there, either. 

“It was as bad a situation as you get,” he said later. “It was extremely dangerous.” 

He took the boat back upriver and fell back to the original position. Rob had taken a position at the motor and spotted a purple rope coming up near the surface sporadically alongside the left of the jet boat. 

Danger - it could foul the jet.

It would come up every few seconds within reach to grab. After several tries, I caught it and started pulling. Mark yelled at me to stop. He took the rope around the front of the bow and gave it a tug on the starboard side. 

“It’s no good, not strong enough rope, and I don’t trust it at all,” Mark said. 

The only way to get a hold of the boat was to drill holes in the bottom of it and properly hook it with ropes. 

“I don’t have the right tools with us to get that boat ,” Mark said. “We’ll have to come back.”

THE LONG VOYAGE HOME

After Chewy, Judy, Brian and Jerry boarded the boat, Mark started the two-mile trip downriver. 

We had gone river left and the front of the boat pounded violently onto a rock.

The boat’s front end spun on a pivot and the back of the boat quickly turned downstream. The boat hammered into a second rock and stuck, with the bow pointing upstream.

The boat's port side was high on the rock, and the rear starboard of the boat sat a few inches from going underwater at the back. 

“Get to the side or we’re going down,” Mark yelled. He signaled us to move to the low side of the boat to bring our weight off the rock on which we were stuck.

Jerry leaned into me, “Don’t try to save anyone, just get to shore.”

Mark revved the engine and turned it side to side, moving the boat back and forth to free it from the rock. The crew moved their weight back and forth to rock the boat.

The boat remained stuck, turning on a fulcrum, that back corner still just inches from swamping us. Mark drove the jet back and forth several times.

And the boat came free.

But now, we were heading backward downstream into the turn of the river. 

Another loud bang came from the stern of the boat. Mark pulled on the shifter. He revved the motor and it moved a bit but came out of gear.  Rob jumped back to assist. He jammed the motor in gear. 

Mark revved the engine. Nothing. No movement.

We floated downriver, adrift, bouncing off rocks.

Rob set the anchor on the bow; the boat had to be stopped from further damage. 

Mark called for the anchor several times. Rob threw it overboard, and it hooked in the rocky bottom. He wrapped the cleat on the bow and the rope came tight and the boat came about upstream and halted. Rob tied it off. Mark started the smaller secondary motor - the kicker - and drove the boat against the anchor line, pushing toward shore. 

The smaller motor brought us into the bank. Mark jumped out of the boat and tied it off on a tree. Secure. 

He came down from behind the willow brush, stepped into the river and up to the side of the boat. 

“I want to apologize for putting you all in danger,” he said. “I will never run a boat in white water again.”

After retrieving the anchor with some rope grabbers, a chain winch and copious amounts of cussing, we packed some water, pop and Gatorade and prepared to walk out the two miles to North Junction.

Before leaving, Rob took a photo of the jet pump. The cast housing was shattered - a small piece of blue rope was caught in the impeller.

WALKING OUT

I was stunned on the walkout.

 Brian and I tagged along behind Mark and Judy at first. Both fear and loathing set in on me. 

I had this story to write - but this was not demonstrative of the 100s of successful salvages and the people Mark had recovered over the years. My God, a photo of him flipping an aluminum drift boat is in the original “Handbook to the Deschutes River Canyon”, published in 1979. This was one trip, a single story in a thousand. Mark’s career was centered around helping people, finding their lost loved ones, taking risks no one else would take. California, Oregon, Montana, Idaho. If it was white water and nobody else would do it, Mark would if invited.

“I don’t have a reason,” he said of recovering people. “My wife asked me that question. I’ve now realized the importance of it. I never charged for a body. I never charged more for a boat than the average boat cost to recover. In my lifetime, it’s cost me over a million dollars easily.” 

And so, what were the chances of a trip ending like this and some sap - me - there to document it all?

I asked Angel what I should do.

“Tell it like it happened,” was his return.

“It was a profound thing to see,” said Brian the next day. “I don’t think he went into this as a last hurrah. It was sad to see. I felt the weight of it in the moment. It was like watching a professional pitcher not able to hit the strike zone anymore and have to walk off the field.”

Mark and Judy both told me that Mark had several strokes since 2019 that affected his ability to read and write. His last stroke came on March 3rd. It changed his vision. Mark had been bleeding from his occipital lobe, Judy said.

“I could not see,” Mark said later, bearing responsibility for hitting the rock. “I did not notice until we crashed. I missed the slot to go in. I was 15 feet off two times in 50 yards, and that is unforgivable. I probably would like people to know if they need help in white water - I’m not running it - If I can go help them, I will.” 

 “This was the first time I've run a boat since the whole thing started,” he said of his health. “I should have realized. I was not good enough to be doing that.”

After walking into North Junction and loading pickups for the return to Maupin, Brian talked with Judy.

“I put my arm around her,” he said. “I told her it was an absolute pleasure spending the day with you. She teared up and looked at me and said, ‘I wish you could have seen him two years ago. He was so great, so amazing to watch. I’m sorry you did not get to see that.’”

LIFE JACKETS AND BOATER SAFETY

During his career, Mark said almost every drowning was the result of not wearing a lifejacket. For white water, he said USCG type I, II, or III should be worn for safety, with a minimum of three straps. Life jackets need to be fitted snugly so the wearer can breathe properly but also tight enough so that the jacket will not spring up over the head when going into the water. Adjust the jacket properly before getting on the water.  

All people are required by law to wear USCG type I, II, III, or V life jackets when in Class III white water. Children 12 years old and younger must wear a USCG-approved personal flotation device at all times while underway on a boat or being towed. 

Mark also pointed out that he has seen drownings where the deceased was considered an expert swimmer. He said cold water temperatures and strong currents can render the best swimmers helpless. Wear a lifejacket.

Mark said he was encouraged by the fact that recreational boaters are more and more prepared as the sport matures. However, he said a lack of planning and patience are typically what lead people into trouble. Scouting white water, studying maps of your river travel and setting plans were paramount, he said.

White water salvage man Mark Angel uses a lineman’s hot stick on June 4 to try and hook a drift boat sunk on The Deschutes River below Whitehorse Rapids.

Rob Miles assists Mark Angel as they work to salvage Jerry Janeck’s Clackacraft drift boat just above House Rock. Heavy currents and water depth made the salvage work difficult at best. The boat went down on Memorial Day. No one was hurt, minus some bumps, bruises and cuts.

Jerry Janeck holds a binoculars case found drifting in the water near North Junction. Janeck lost it when his boat sank in Whitehorse Rapids some 10 days earlier. The river taketh and giveth back. Janeck was able to retrieve a good part of his gear with the help of volunteers. “People had stacked our stuff on the sides of the river,” Jerry said. “I can’t say enough good about this river community. The people are so gracious; one guy called me with my wallet.”

Judy Angel and their dog Chewy get ready to ride with Mark. Photo by Brian Janecek.

Mark Angel’s life vest. Well made, well used.

Imperial River Company’s Rob Miles heaves the anchor so that Mark Angel’s boat could be kept pointed upstream and then let back slowly to where the sunken drift boat rested on the bottom.

Mark Angel navigates some rapids near “House Rock” just up river from North Junction. The white water salvage man is a Pacific Northwest icon in search and rescue circles. This was his last trip manning the tiller in white water.

Mark Angel sorts through his massive stash of tools, looking for he right stuff before heading up river to recover a drift boat on the Deschutes River.

Walking out - Mark Angel heads down the trail to North Junction after his boat was disabled by a rock. Photo by Brian Janecek

Crew and friends - from right, Ryan, Rob Miles, Mark and Judy Angel, Jerry Janeck, Bill Bartell and Brian Janecek.

The top photo is of Mark Angel turning an aluminum drift boat in the 1970’s. it was published in the Handbook to the Deschutes River Canyon in 1979.