From surviving epic drops to setting world-first descents of un-run river rapids, Dane Jackson has no shortage of gnarly stories.

You don’t have to paddle to enjoy chatting with a river rat. Anyone familiar with whitewater has more than their fair share of “Big Fish” stories and brushes with disaster.

So it came as no surprise that Dane Jackson — roundly considered the world’s pre-eminent whitewater paddler — had plenty of these tales at the ready. Jackson not only famously dropped off the second-tallest waterfall in the world (he’s quick to debate just how tall that is), he also sent the then-unsent Rondu Gorge of the Indus River, which is, to date, the longest rapid ever paddled.

He also holds the course record at the famed Green River Narrows Race. All that’s to say that Jackson can spin a yarn. So naturally, we put a microphone in his face to get it all on record.