"THE IMPACT WAS HEAVY," says 23-year-old Montanan kayaker Tyler Bradt of his 80-mile-per-hour entry into the pool at the bottom of eastern Washington's 186-foot Palouse Falls this past April. "I took a huge hit to the chest, which knocked the wind out of me and jackknifed me against the back of my boat. I had so much adrenaline going through me, I didn't know if I was hurt or not."

Since March, kayakers have broken world waterfall records three times, raising the takeoff height an astounding 78 feet and making a serious media splash. After his plunge, Bradt appeared on Anderson Cooper 360^o. The previous month, Brazilian Pedro Oliva, 26, debuted footage of his March 4 run over his home country's 127-foot Salto Belo on the Today show, where Ann Curry touted "the growing popularity of extreme kayaking." On Mother's Day, Christie Glissmeyer, 30, of Hood River, Oregon, launched off 108-foot Metlako Falls, setting a new women's record. At least a dozen others—including Brendan Wells, who's 15—have now broken the 100-foot mark.

Ask any of these huckers the obvious question—um, why?—and

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you get everything from "For my personal progression" (Bradt) to "It was close to my house" (Glissmeyer). Given all the press coverage, it's tempting to agree with Curry that the sport is booming, but in fact just the opposite is true. White­water kayaking is in serious decline, with American paddlers spending some 50 percent fewer days on the water than at the beginning of the decade, sponsorship dollars drying up, and the once-raging pro freestyle tour all but gone. For elite athletes, launching huge waterfalls may be the new frontier, but it's also one of the few remaining ways to scratch out a living in a boat.

It's been a long, hard fall for a pursuit that used to define adventure-sport cool. The boom cycle really took off in 1997, when designers at kayak manufacturer Wave Sport popularized a radical new boat, the X. It had a flat-bottomed hull, like a surfboard, and it enabled paddlers to spin and slide sideways on river waves. Freestyle river rodeos began drawing huge crowds and big-money sponsors like Subaru and Nike. In 2001, Outside put then-19-year-old kayaker Brad Ludden on the cover, teasing a story about the dream life of pro paddlers: "Take two hotdoggers, hand them the keys to a brand-new Subaru, stock it with boats and cash, and send the lucky bastards off with two words: Find water. Wouldn't you want to be a rodeo kayaker?"

Yes, please!

Mike Steck, who ran Dagger Kayaks' Team D from 1996 to 2005, remembers bidding wars with Wave Sport for elite athletes, who were stringing together sponsorships amounting to more than $100,000 per year. High schools like the roving World Class Kayak Academy sprouted to hone the country's top talent. It was all going so well. Then it wasn't. According to the research firm Leisure Trends Group, whitewater kayaking hit its peak in 2002, with 3.9 million paddlers spending 14 million days on the water. By 2004, the last year before LTG changed its survey methods, kayaker days had fallen by half.