My trip log - Day 5
Rest Day. It was very much needed and well deserved. Rafa and Ben went back to the 90 foot waterfall to scout it out, while the rest of the crew stayed in town to catch up with family and friends through email and phone.
My trip log - Day 6
210 foot repel. We came back to the same spot we stopped on day 4, right above the huge waterfall. Rafa and Ben were pretty serious on scouting the waterfall, seeing how tall it was and possibly running it. The rest of us were trying to come up with a way to get down to the river from over 200 feet above. We calculated that Ben had a climbing rope of 230 feet, so the repel we decided to do was about 210 feet, with 20 feet of rope dragging in the water. Rafa had taken the harness for their adventure of repelling to the lip of the waterfall, so that left us with some webbing, a water knot and hopefully someone who knew how to tie a harness together. I look back at the repel as one of my favorite parts of the trip. To be 210 feet above the water, feet dangling below you, the wind and water whipping you around as you got closer to the base of the water . . . it all was so magical. It was decided against running the waterfall so both Ben and Rafa joined the group at the base of the waterfall and we continued downstream.
This section of river had the most boulder gardens. Steep and technical, yet short boulder gardens. We boat scouted through about 5 boulder drops, when Ben and Rafa continued downstream and gave us the sign to “stop”. The river made another bend and disappeared. Ben and Rafa tried to pick their way down to make sure we could all continue safely, but decided that a scouting mission needed to be done. So, due to the lateness in the day, we all decided to paddle/walk our boats back upstream through the 5 boulder gardens we paddled down. Huffing and Puffing, “It’s definately harder to paddle/go upstream than downstream”! By the end of the day, I was the most physically drained than any of the days prior. That evening I skipped dinner and went to bed.
~Heather~