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< May June 2006
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Goodbye to an Icon Lunch Video Magazine’s Daniel DeLaVergne killed in train accident

Paddling lost an icon March 7 when Lunch Video Magazine (LVM) co-founder Daniel DeLaVergne was struck by a train while scouting a photo location near Asheville, N.C. Details of his death are foggy, but friends and authorities believe he had been sleeping in the Black Mountain train tunnel to film the location at sunrise. A late-spring snowstorm blew through the area that evening, and friends think DeLaVergne took shelter in the tunnel, awoke to the rumble of an engine and was unable to get out of the way. The conductor saw a figure trying to avoid the train. DeLaVergne suffered massive head trauma and reportedly lost part of his arm in the impact. He was taken to Mission Hospital in Asheville where he was pronounced dead the next morning.

Two days before his death, DeLaVergne celebrated his 29th birthday on his beloved Green River near Asheville. To get the party started, he caught a ridiculously small eddy—now called The Birthday Eddy—just above the Notch, a narrow, granite constriction guarding the entrance to Gorilla Falls. Catching the eddy forfeited all of his momentum, amplifying the challenge of the famously difficult drop. DeLaVergne cleaned it, his smooth, efficient strokes and calm demeanor making the stunt look simple. “Daniel always drew a line in the sand,” says Liquidlogic’s Woody Calloway. “He wasn’t going to talk about doing something difficult; he was going to do it.”

DeLaVergne cut a larger-than-life figure in the whitewater world. His LVM video series ushered in the technology age of whitewater media. The IR Big Gun Show video awards, another DeLaVergne brainchild, are among the industry’s most-coveted prizes, and his sea kayaking video series Kayak Journal was gaining momentum. Those are only his off-water accomplishments; his paddling exploits were equally revolutionary. “He was big with all walks of paddling life,” says Liquidlogic’s Shane Benedict.

DeLaVergne was the driving force behind several ambitious expeditions that helped redefine the limits of whitewater paddling, including the first single-day descent of the Grand Canyon of the Stikine last September and the first descent of British Columbia’s Mosley Creek in March 2005. DeLa Vergne masterminded the 7 Rivers Expedition, in which a team of paddlers ran all seven of California’s premiere multi-day creek runs during 53 days in the summer of 2004. “When he got off the plane, Daniel was the trip leader,” says Calloway. “Whether they were in South America, California or Canada, he always had a plan to make the trip happen.”

DeLaVergne’s most impressive quality may have been his ability to make his work—arguably the most hard-core whitewater footage anywhere—attractive to corporate entities like Teva and Thule, where he served as a video consultant. “It’s fair to say Daniel affected every level of our business with regards to paddling, mountain biking and trail running,” says Adam Druckman, Teva’s global sports marketing manager. “I trusted him completely in dealing with core paddlers like the Young Guns or sitting down with our CEO to explain the benefits of new technology to our business. There are very few people in this world who can do that.”

DeLaVergne’s death leaves an enormous void in the lives of his friends and family, and will be deeply felt in the kayaking community. His media work fueled the industry, giving the sport a young, hip persona. A natural question is whether LVM will continue, and in what form. “Number 19 will be all about his life and will arrive on time,” says LVM co-owner John Weld of Immersion Research. “Beyond that, we’re still working out the details with his family.”

DeLaVergne’s memorial at the Asheville Pizza and Brewing Company was packed with Asheville locals and paddlers from New Zealand, South America, Japan, and the rest of the United States. The large turnout reflected LVM’s popularity, and even more so, the infectious magnetism of DeLaVergne’s personality. His funeral in a muggy Episcopal Church in Tampa, Fla., was standing room only—a fitting sendoff for someone whose passing will be felt for decades. “This could be the greatest loss in kayaking ever,” says Druckman. “I was proud to know him. I’m sure many people felt the same.” —jc