Pourover (Cont.) | Outside Online

You Are Here:

Home >> Travel >> Pourover (Cont.)

Today's Question
Where should I camp in Switzerland with my kids? answer

What's the best volcano to hike up in North America? answer

How can I plan a trip around riding the biggest, fastest roller coasters? answer

Online Favorites

Special Issues

Photo Galleries

Outside Magazine December 2001

Page:

Pourover (Cont.)


	Ario Ferri vaults over a classic Cotahuasi ledge

IN HIS PURPLE RODEO, paddling big, technical Class V water, Ario Ferri looked dauntingly poised. He vaulted—"boofed"—a five-foot ledge, took a few relaxed strokes, moving left through thrashing waves that wanted to push him right, and found the narrow seam that was the only way down the next series of chaotic drops. Ario fell through the ramps of crashing water with the smoothness of a marble on silk. Then he caught an eddy off the left bank, spun 180 degrees to a stop, popped his spray skirt, and scrambled to the top of a house-size rock overlooking the river. He pulled his video camera from its waterproof box and began to film the rest of the team—the ones, that is, who decided to run the rapid.

This rapid was almost a mile long, the bottom half solid Class V. We named it Todo el Día—All Day Long. Beyond the rock where Ario stood, the river tumbled over another set of steps and surged into a 20-foot-wide box canyon.

We had been paddling at this point for three days, and though the whitewater was relentless, we had settled into an efficient rhythm. Ario and his childhood friend Leonardo Gonzalez,

The Catahuasi never once let up. It's an endless flow of fast-falling and difficult "busy water."

both 21, were our lead "safety kayakers." They would paddle several bends ahead of the four rafts and radio back instructions: "At the big pourover in the middle, enter left, exit right." When the two Peruvians got to a Class V drop, they'd radio for a halt. The consequences of a mistake in Class V water may be serious injury or death. As soon as Goddard got the call in the lead raft he'd signal to the boats behind him and then look for a place to eddy out. Sometimes that wasn't easy. The Cotahuasi never, not once, lets up. It's an endless flow of fast-falling and difficult "busy water." There are no pools, no flat stretches where a boater can relax.

I ran my kayak up onto a small beach and clambered over a cobbled bank to look down at Todo el D'a. Half of the eight kayakers had already decided to walk it.



	Johnny Rama at the Iquipi take-out

Johnny Rama stood beside me. A 33-year-old safety kayaker from Massachusetts, he routinely runs some of the wildest, biggest rivers in the world, including the Zambezi in Africa and Chile's Futaleufœ. He had a punkish blond haircut beneath his helmet and wore his zinc sunblock like war paint.

"So whaddya think?" he said.

"Not me, Johnny," I said. "I was schooled once today already."

It had happened a few miles back, at a gnarly constriction called Orange Juice. Last year a Peruvian kayak guide had gotten into trouble and bailed out of his boat along with a dozen oranges that bobbed behind him—hence the name. Now all the rafters got out and walked. I was routinely amazed at how swiftly Goddard and his crew got the passengers out of the boats and around the bigger rapids. The guides would then either line the rafts along the bank or "ghost boat" them empty through the run. Often they would unload the clients and paddle the lightened rafts themselves, deftly working the drops as if they were slalom gates.

On the right side of Orange Juice was a five-foot ledge that spilled into a nasty-looking hydraulic. Only one of the kayakers decided to boof the drop, sailing clear over the hole. I decided to follow. Before this trip, it had been quite a few years since I had paddled anything really demanding. I was a bit anxious, but after a day or so I got used to the boat and was surprising myself. I felt relaxed and strong and was running all the Class V. I was also feeling a little cocky.

I hammered through waves for the ledge, for the foot-wide seam along the right side, thinking, "Yes! Got it!" and was shocked when my bow collided with the wall of the canyon. I pendulumed out over the lip, fell sideways into the hole, and flipped. This was not a good place to be. I tucked into roll position and looked up at the light through the frigid 55-degree water and waited for the hole to release me, but it didn't. I felt the boat vibrating in place. My breath expanded to an ache in my lungs. I had a vivid image of the hole, the shape of it, the way it was blocked off on either side by rock wall and boulder, and I thought, "Is this how it ends? Is this it? Dang." I wasn't scared or nonaccepting, just baffled. Then I remembered that there was no point in trying to roll out of a vertical hole, so I'd better try to reach for a deeper outflowing current. I extended the paddle. Nothing. Then I thought, "OK, swim for deeper water." In my buoyant life jacket, that was probably wishful thinking. I unsnapped the spray skirt and wrenched myself out of the cockpit. The movement was enough to pull me clear of the hole, and I came up in boiling slackwater. The kayak had somehow popped free, too. Gian Marco's brother, Piero Vellutino, threw a safety rope from shore and pulled me in.

For the next hour I beat myself up. I hadn't swum a rapid in years. And then, on a stretch of playful green water between rapids, I looked around me—at the black rocks glistening in the current, at the high walls and the graceful, narrow-leaved molle trees along the bank—and I thought, "I'm alive!" The Cotahuasi had humbled me, but it had also been generous.

As I stood beside Johnny, contemplating the maelstrom that was Todo el Día, I surprised myself by thinking I might not portage after all. I began to look at the long rapid not as a single terrifying surge, but piece by piece, following the lines of current over ledges and through pourovers and holes and breaking waves. "You could run here, and then move left, catch the eddy behind the boulder and boof the ledge, and..." A paddler's mind can't help itself. I called down to the last kayaker on the shore, an American named Kipchoge Spencer. "Wait for me, I'll run it with you." By the time I squeezed into my boat, sealed the spray skirt, and paddled into the current, I felt focused and excited. The shore was empty—everybody had either portaged or paddled. Then everything went silent, the big breaking waves and the seething holes, and it was all motion, the thoughts clean and simple: Move left, catch the tongue. I caught up with Kipchoge and we ran down through the fury almost in tandem.

Page: