charge

After kayaking so much over the previous two weeks, showing up once and not running it because I was sick, I knew my last day in Mexico was the day for Tomata 1. This is the classic big waterfall in Mexico and I’ve had a picture of it on my desk at school that I’ve looked at for months now. It’s an absolutely beautiful waterfall. It drops from about 60 feet with the calmest entrance you could imagine. Tomata 1 is the definition of a pool to pool drop. The day we went to run it about 20 people from Aventurec showed up to watch us which added a bit of extra pressure to the already difficult waterfall. The drop itself may look straightforward, but there is a lot more than meets the eye. The immediate, 90 degree angle of the drop makes it hard to get and maintain the right angle of entry. It all comes down to the moment you roll over the lip, the moment of truth where you set your last stroke and decide to pull it through or hold it. Now comes the hardest part of running waterfalls, waiting. You have to stare down to the bottom of the waterfall, spotting your landing, waiting for the right moment to tuck up or throw your paddle. If you pull your last stroke, tuck up, throw your paddle or move too early, you’re very likely to land flat or on your head.

There are two commonly run lines on Tomata 1 and I opted for the center line because, even though you land just a few feet from the rocks at the bottom, the landing looked much softer and the lip looked a little more forgiving than the left line. My good friend who I met in Chile last year, Seth Ashworth, and I had a quick game of rock-paper-scissors to decide who was to go first. He won and we both suited up to run the beast. After he disappeared over the lip, I waited about 20 seconds to drop in so I could try to rescue him or any of his gear if there was a problem. Coming up to the lip, I knew I wanted to use the left to right momentum of the water just above the lip to push my kayak right into the left side of a curler that’s barely visible from above. I took a few back strokes and lined it up just right, found the right patch of water, got pushed into the curler, leaned forward and planted my last stroke. I waited as long as I could, knowing that I was just where I wanted to be, threw my paddle and fell into the pillowy soft goodness at the bottom.

The moment of truth.

Have to hold that stroke. Photo by Brett Barton.

The full scene. Photo by Patrick Heindel.
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Obligatory after waterfall selfie.

After you run the waterfall, that’s where the fun really begins. You make sure your crew is good to go and then have to run a little 8 footer one person at a time and land in the pool above directly Tomata 2, probably the 2^nd stoutest waterfall I’ve ever seen (behind the Dirty Gerd in Chile). From here, you have to sketchily traverse across the slippery rock and line each kayak down to the lip of Tomata 2. Then you attach these boats to the ropes you set before running the waterfall to hoist them up the cliff and then you have to climb up that same cliff. It’s not the hardest climbing I’ve ever done, not that I’m much of a climber, but you are literally climbing on slippery, sketchy rocks at the lip of Tomata 2. One slip and you might fall another 80 feet down to the pool below. But thankfully we’re all experts at what we do, so we had no problems. Then it’s just a quick hike through a banana plantation back to the cars.

Easy day.

The lip of Tomata 2 and Calob Adams making his way up and out of the gorge. You have to climb up the crack just to his left.

It’s been a while since I posted anything on here, but I figure it’s about time as an entire spring, summer and fall have passed…I have a ton of posts written so here’s the beginning.

Last spring, I didn’t get to kayak as much as I wanted, although I think it may be hard for me to ever satiate that need. Spring quarter was by far the busiest and hardest of my college career, until now, so it was difficult to find the time to get in my boat, but I made it work a few days. The best weekend was by far making it to the South Silver.

The South Silver is a classic introduction to Class V boating in California. Starting off with a fast and fun slide called Autobahn, then continuing downhill in a series of awesome clean slides and drops and culminating in the steepest and biggest two drops of them all, Skyscraper and Offramp. In 2012, these were by far the two biggest and steepest rapids I had run at the time and were my first true exposure to the gold and goodness that is California Class V. This particular day, no one else in my group wanted to send it, but there’s no way I could walk away from this awesome piece of whitewater. I made sure Skyler Mullings and Isaac Freeland, who had been hiking along the river with us and shooting some media, were in place and I got ready to send it. I came through the bottom with a sweet line and had to do it again. I’ve discovered that when there is good whitewater around, I need to take advantage of it, especially when I live in the city. Round two went just as well and I had a sick gangster lean ear touching boof off the bottom drop.

After the rest of the group finished portaging, we made one last portage around some siphoned out mank and charged on down through Plastic Surgery and Quadruple Bypass. I stayed behind everyone with my good friend Mikey to show him the lines. Right above the second drop, I saw Drew paddling up stream to catch a small little one-boat eddy. What I hadn’t seen was my other friend Ryan getting beat down in the hole at the bottom. When I came over the drop, I saw the bottom of his boat and boofed right over his him and Mikey followed suit. We watched Ryan throw a few ends and finally give up and swim. Luckily we were able to eddy out just below and collect the pieces.

If anyone gets the opportunity to get on this river or even hike around this river, I highly recommend it. It’s beautiful granite drops and pools make for a Disneyland for kayakers and fantastic swimming holes in the heat of California summers.

All pictures and video used in screenshots were taken by Skyler Mullings.