Goal: To run the Alseseca River - Alta Tonga to Tomata Falls (25 km of whitewater/some first descents) Sections: Upper Alseseca Road Side Alseseca Middle Alseseca Lower Alseseca Lower lower Alseseca Cascadia de Tomata
Paddlers:
Ben Stookesbury - “Indiana Jones” of kayaking - Trip leader who got us out of bed each morning at 5:30 am
Eric Seymore - “Man of little words” - each time I asked him about a big, gnarly drop, he said nothing, his eyes lit up and he smiled. Then I said to myself, “Oh shit!”
Rafael Ortiz - Ben’s sidekick. He was alongside Ben on each portage and scout.
Definitely a huge part of the success of this mission.
Phil Boyer - Didn’t get to paddle with him much, because he hurt his back before we
arrived, but what I noticed was that he was a huge “hucker” and safety-consciuos.
Darren - “State of Jefferson” -“The man with the sweetest lines off of the biggest drops”. Dude, you rock!
Nick Troutman - Positive all the time. This was his first creeking experience and styled
everything. “My Buddy” on the river, always kept me occupied on other things than the
drops, ‘cuz I think he realized I was a little nervous.
Eric Jackson - “The Man” - Funniest guy on the trip. He came up with the silliest jokes and made everyone laugh.
Jesse Coombs - “Mr Positive” - I hold him in high regards . . . you’re awesome!
Thayer - Men’s Journal writer and “Let me just huck this double drop and see what
happens” guy.
Heather Herbeck - Only girl on the trip, but kept up with the guys.
Lucas Gilman - Photographer for Men’s Journal. Loved the night life in town!!!
Isreal - Awesome! What can I say about him . . . he made everything work out.
Because of “Issy” we got to sleep in a bed every night I was there. He was the local
who found our access points to the river before we even arrived.
My trip log - Day 1
The adventure started before I even got to Mexico. I’d have to say that if I was superstitious, I would have had good reason to decide to stay home . . .
A couple weeks before I left, I had purchased a ticket. When the confirmation notice was emailed to me, I noticed that I was flying into a completely different city, so I cancelled this ticket and purchased a ticket that flew into Mexico City. Thinking that I read over THIS confirmation thoroughly, I figured I was set. Well, two days BEFORE I planned to leave, I looked over the confirmation again. This is when I noticed that Nate’s name was on the ticket and not mine. So, after spending hours on the phone trying to get this fixed, we ended up getting credit for this ticket and purchasing yet another. Once the third ticket purchase was finished, I noticed on the confirmation that I would be arriving in Mexico City on November 2, which was too late to meet up with the rest of the group. So, I ended up canceling this ticket and made the final ticket purchase - arriving in Mexico City on November 1st and leaving November 12. I Definitely was feeling the stress and anxiety and of course some doubt about going to Mexico, but with Nate’s determination to make this happen and Jesse stating in his email to me that “You’ve worked too hard to get where you’re at . . . You can’t NOT go!”, and Ben’s emails of inspiration, I was well on my way - physically and mentally.
I arrived in Mexico City at 9:00 a.m. Jesse, EJ, Thayer and Lucas (Men’s Journal Photographer) were expected to arrive at 6:00 p.m., so I figured I’d wait at the airport and people watch until they arrived. In the 7 hours at the airport, I noticed a couple things about Mexico City. One, the airport floor is clean enough to eat off of - because I had my boat, I sat in the same general area the entire time - it was a constant cleaning cycle: broom, followed by a broom for the small floor cracks, followed by another broom, followed by a mop and then the cycle repeated for 7 hours. The other thing I noticed about Mexico City was that Mexican women love their jeans tight and their heels high - my feet hurt just watching them walk. Once 6:00 p.m. came around everyone but EJ arrived. EJ had some “boat issues” with his original flight so with his change in flights, he was now expected to arrive at 10:30 p.m. Eleven O’clock rolled around and we finally met up with EJ. I was going on my 12th hour at the airport and insanity was setting in. We packed the rental van with our gear and luggage, strapped our kayaks on the roof praying that they would stay and ventured off into the dark for a 5 hour journey to Veracruz.
We arrived in Tllapacoyan around 4:00 a.m., got a hotel room and slept for another 5 hours before we hooked up with the rest of the crew. Once everyone was up, we met in the lobby for introductions. When it was my turn to introduce myself, I felt a bunch of blank stares my way. Perhaps the guys were wondering how a female paddler got invited on a Men’s Journal shoot and how I would keep up with the group . . . I guess we were too find out!
We checked into another hotel which was our “base camp” for the next week and ½. I was thinking we would take it easy the day we arrived, get settled and check out the town, but the next words out of Ben’s mouth were, “Let’s go do a warm-up run!” Our “Warm-up” run was the Roadside section of the Alseseca.
We put on the river around 12:00 p.m. The water was a little lower than when the group had run this section a couple days before. The put-in was a pool right above a 25 foot waterfall. At this flow, you needed to boof left to avoid pitoning a boulder ledge off the right side at the base of the falls, however you didn’t want to go too far left and hit the river left cliff wall. So, after watching a few paddlers go over, I hopped in my Rocker, paddled down the entrance to the waterfall, angled my boat right while driving left, took a hard left boofstroke and landed. “Bamm”, I boofed as flat as possible, sounding like a gun shot! I got a bunch of smiles from the crew, so far so good!
Next was a double drop, pretty chunky at this flow. We blue angeled it. Entered the top section river left into a river right pillow and down the chunk of the drop. The river continued with ledges and slides.
We then got to “S-turn”. This rapid consisted of a sloping vertical entrance, right angle bow, driving right. As you drove right, you hit a huge pillow on river left (this was a very narrow slide chute rapid - you can see this rapid in Burning Time with much, much more water), which bounced you quickly to a huge curler pillow on river right. Once past this part all you had to do is ride the chute down to the pool. “If you tip over, Heather, don’t bother rolling up,” I was told by the group. “Just hold on until you get to the pool below because it’s really shallow in there.” After looking at this rapid for a while, I made up my mind to run it. I came down the slope with speed and hit the left pillow. However, I was leaning too far left that as it shot me right, I flipped. Now, of course I didn’t wait to roll up. I did what was instinctual to a paddler - I set up for a roll, swept my paddle and rolled up. I came out of the chute upright and with a lot of cheers from EJ and Ben (who thought I had styled it until I opened my big mouth that I flipped in the middle of it all). Next, Jesse ran, flipping in the same spot I did. Unfortunately, he had been fighting some shoulder issues and dislocated his shoulder when he tipped. He took the time to put his shoulder back in place as he was upside down and then pulled his skirt to swim into the pool. Jesse was in a lot of pain, we could all tell. He flew home the next day and is currently taking the time to rehabilitate and get back on the water. (We missed you Jesse). Once we got Jesse off the river, we got back in our boats. I pulled into an eddy below the rapid, right beside Rafa. Rafa looked at me and said, “I’ve never paddled with a women who actually knows what she’s doing!” I replied back, “Rafa, I’m fooling you, I don’t know what I’m doing!” We both laughed.
The river continued with some good rapids. One of the next rapids looked to have a pretty bad hole at the bottom. “As long as you hit it straight and with speed, you should go right through”. I could have easily walked it, but Jesse encouraged me to give it a go. I came down the left side of the rapid, taking a right boof stroke over a center hole, continued paddling and straightening myself out and plunged through the hole at the bottom. I had thought I made it, but ended up turning sideways and not going anywhere from there. “Heather, move back, move back, keep going, move back.” I heard EJ yell. I took 5-6 right bladed backstrokes and worked my way out of the hole’s grasp. “Phew”!
It was getting dark and we finally reached our take-out. On a bridge 15 feet above us, Lucas, Jesse and Phil cheered our arrival. What a great “warm-up”. Fun, big drops, roadside . . . the best was yet to come. ~Heather~