My trip log - Day 9
This was our final day on the river and would conclude our adventure from Alta Tonga to the Tomata Gorge. We woke up particularly early to make sure we accomplished what we wanted that day. Just like always, we headed to our favorite breakfast spot, knowing that this was the last time we would be there. Since I had arrived in Mexico, my diet consisted mostly of packaged cookies and crackers, fearing the sickness that struck everyone else, I stuck to this regimen day in and day out. I was to the point that I couldn’t look at another Vanilla Cookie, so this morning I opted for scrambled eggs, rice and beans like everyone else. “Why not”, I thought. “It’s our last morning here” . . . It was awesome eating “real” food.
When we got back to the river everyone started scouting the 40-footer and getting fired up. EJ is definately a man of his word. I remembered him saying, the day before, that he would come out and run the 40 footer the next day. He not only ran it, but he ran it first and styled it. To date, this is EJ’s highest waterfall. (I’m sure he’s done seal launches higher though!!!) Darin and Nick followed. Everyone had great lines. I had a tough time deciding whether or not I wanted to run it. Everyone who ran it had great lines, which made me want to run it. But, I knew of the consequences - the river left wall was severaly undercut, perhaps deadly and the hole at the bottom of the falls was sticky. After contemplating the drop, I felt that the likely-hood of me messing up the drop and having a very serious swim and putting my team in a situation that could possibly be bad, was almost greater than having the feeling that I could style the drop. So, I walked this drop. (I found out the next day when I talked to my husband, Nate, that he didn’t want me to run it. He was so happy when he heard I had walked the drop).
Those of us who didn’t run the 40 footer, got to do a pretty cool seal launch - about 20 feet up. Now, I’d much rather run a waterfall then push myself over a vertical cliff any day. So, I convinced Eric and Rafa to push me in. “Make sure you don’t send me over the handle bars!” Make sure you push me off perfectly!” I told them as I gave them a smile. The only thing I had to do was tuck my paddle and land. On the count of three . . “One, two, three!” They shoved me in, landing me at the perfect angle . . . “Thanks guys!”
We continued down river and eddied out above a horizon line. As we got out to scout, we noticed that this drop had three distinct ledges with small pools between all of them. The first was a crazy, folding hole pocket that was backed up a bit by a rock. It look pretty sketchy. The second ledge was a boof down the middle. The third ledge was a must-make boof off of the flake to avoid a pretty gnarly hole. EJ ran the three ledges first. As he went through the first ledge, the fold completely grabbed him and he disappeared, popping up and fighting his way out of the hole. He continued through the second and third. Rafa was the only other paddler to do the first drop.
After watching Rafa and Nick continue downstream I got in my boat. I noticed Rafa and Nick eddied out below the second ledge, awaiting my arrival. I picked up speed as I approached the drop, planted my paddle, pulled of a sweet boof and flipped at the bottom. Once again, I got pushed up into the river left wall. I attempted my roll over and over again and then, realizing the third drop wasn’t far downstream, I pulled my skirt. Rafa came to my rescue! “Grab on, grab on” Rafa yelled. I grabbed on to the back of his boat and he was trying with all his might to paddle upstream so neither of us would go over the last ledge. The power of the water was too strong, though. I felt myself and Rafa being pulled over the last ledge. “Let go, let go!” Rafa yelled. “But I don’t want to let go!” I shouted back at him. Finally, knowing that there was no way Rafa was going to get me out of this one, I let go. . . just in time for him to take a couple more strokes to avoid going over himself. I turned over onto my back, balled up and went deep . . . way deep. Without any trouble at all, I popped up pretty far downstream. EJ was there with a rope. He threw me the rope right before the river did an S-turn. (At this point we had no idea what was downstream) I grabbed onto the rope and tried to swim up into a calm eddy, but a boily, turbulant eddyline was blocking the way. I felt myself being pulled down by this eddyline. For a second all you could see was my helmet on the surface of the water. I tried scrambling up the rocks, but there was nothing to grip my feet too. Finally, once the boily water popped me up again and after I took in a big gulp of water, I noticed Nick’s boat right by me. “Grab on.” Nick yelled. I grabbed on to his boat and he took me downstream. It took me a while to catch my breathe and put my boat back together (foam fell out) and we continued downstream.
We were headed for the last of the big drops. We all eddied out, noticing a huge horizon line with mist rising below. Daren ran ahead to scout. Realizing that this had to be of significance, we all got out of our boats and scouted. This was probably my favorite drop on the river, besides the blind 25 footer from a couple days before. From upstream, we noticed a log sticking out of this drop and we were figuring we couldn’t run it because of it. But, as we continued downstream and looked at the river left side of the drop, we all smiled and cheered. “This drop looks sweet” I thought. This drop ended up being a double drop - 20 footer into another 20 footer. You wanted to boof both drops if you could, making sure to avoid the river right wall at the bottom of the first drop. Rafa fired it up first - he disappeared in the fold of the first drop and plugged the second - came out fine. EJ went next - he styled it all, boofing both the top and bottom drop. I decided to fire it up next - I gave ‘er a left boof stroke as I went over the first drop and disappeared into the fold (just like Rafa), plugging the bottom and popping up. After running this drop, it was mandatory to hit a small (one boat) eddy on river right, climb out of your boat onto a small rock outcropping and rope our boats and ourselves up, because just downstream was a horrible hole with undercuts on both sides. We were pretty sure that if you didn’t boof that hole, you would die. We all portaged the hole and got to do a sweet seal launch downstream. Once again, I asked to be pushed in. Darin got in his boat first, so before Eric and Nick launched me, they helped Daren out. Thinking that they were doing the best they could, they pushed Daren in, landing him on his head (I think he actually got a black eye from that). “Please seal launch me better than that, guys!” I pleaded. They pushed me in and I landed softly.
We ended this section with the Pesma section of the Alseseca that we had done earlier in the week. I had yet to run the 25 foot waterfall that started this run, so my chance to run it was today. . .
~Heather~