Day two
"Here we come Big Banana", I said as we drove up to the put-in. The Big Banana section, as far as I can
remember, had the biggest bang for the buck. We intended to do 3 sections of the alseseca, which took us
three days on the "Hotel Charley" exploration, in about four hours. We hiked in about 1 mile to the base of "Big Banana Falls".
This section of river starts out with some class V boulder gardens, with some bad pin spots and then
enters into the first gorge. Here, in the gorge, we are committing ourselves to the Alseseca. The
characteristics of this river went from boulder gardens to slides, with waterfalls and big holes interspersed
throughout.
Here are some photos of the rapids in the "Big Banana" to Pesma section. We didn't get photos of every drop,
so there lies many more rapids within this section.
Entering the first gorge followed by an amazing 25 footer that we ran blind. There were several ledge rapaid in betweent the first drop and 25 footer
After the 25 footer there were more ledge drops and a couple of boulder gardens until we reached the entrance of the second gorge. I remember seeing photos of this
drop from when Heather had run this section last year. I was really excited to run it, so Rafa and I went first to set up video and photo. There was a wave train
for the lead in so you couldn't really see the horizon line. Once I reached the last wave the drop was way bigger than expected, the narrow slot dropped 25-30 feet and had
about a 80 degree angle. It was pretty amazing once in the gorge, really tight with steep walls. At the end of the gorge we stopped for lunch at John Graces 40 footer.
After lunch we portaged the 40 footer and did a 30 foot seal launch, into totally green water, quite an impact. As we continued down there were more ledges and bigger rapids. On
one of the rapids, Ekirt got stuck in a hole and recirculating eddy for about two minutes until he finally worked his way out. After a few more drops we reached "Meatlocker"
this drop is very intimidating. It has a solid 20 drop directly into another 15-20 footer. Your recovery time between drops is zero. I really wasn't in the mood to run it, but
I had talked to Heather and she said the portage was really sketchy, so after very little deliberation I told them I was going first. I made it far right, boofed the top drop landed
and boofed the second drop, the line was perfect. The only problem was I had the still camera in my boat, and when Rafa pulled up the camcorder, it was turned off, so all shots
of me were missed:( After that Rafa and Ekirt both fired off the drop and Heather wasn't really feeling it, so Rafa walked back up and ran it again in Heathers boat. After Meatlocker
there is a portage followed by another 25 foot seal launch, once again, into green water. We have finally finished the section and started on Pezma, we ran a 20 footer blind, flollowed
by several ledge drop before we took out at dark.
Day Three coming soon!
~Heather / Nate~