Thursday, October 05, 2006

A new rack, the Discovery Channel, and the Alseseca River

We had a wierd last couple of days in Valles. First while driving through town the bus hit a curb which somehow caused our roof rack with 4 kayaks, an oar frame, a raft, 3 tires, and a bike to come crashing down onto the streets of Valles in front of a mexican cop holding a sub machine gun. Nelson, who had been driving was sure he was going to jail, but in Meixco its not even a ticketable offense to drop 1 thousand pounds of gear into the middle of a busy road. However we ended up spending a day in front of a hardware store building a new rack.

Buikding a roof rack in Valles


For no reason at all a dog on top of a car


The next day we were tricked into kayaking micos again for an extreme travel show on latin discovery channel, and because there are give or take five Mexican kayakers in the world we were the only ones around to film. It took all day, but its all worth it for the glory of spanish cable tv.

After finding out that all of the runs in San Luis Potosi were either washed out or horrifyingly high we left for Veracruz. Our first stop was Tlapacoyan where we ran the III+ FiloBobos river which was a beautiful river with some very nice catch on the fly waves, and a good chance for Nelson to improve his oar skills.

The ruins along the Rio Filos


Nelson on the Filos section above the confluence with the Bobos


At the take out for the FiloBobos we met another Jorge, but this Jorge was an excellent kayaker who had lived in California for six years and had decents on Upper Cherry Creek and the Silver Fork. He told us of the Alseseca river. There is a short blurb in the Gringo´s Guidebook about the Alseseca, but at 265 ft/mi it seemed to steep for us, but to the contrary it is a very runnable creek of the highest quality. I recomend this creek to everyone in the area. Above and below the runnable section is V-V+ hair, but for the two miles we ran it contained 30+ manegable drops from 7-30 ft each with some consequence that was seriously lacking in the micos section. The great boofs are almost to many to count, and mixed in with the drops are some tight technical creek rapids. Scout every horizon. It is Jorges favorite run in the world, and the reason he lives in Tlapacoyan. Here are some pictures that look much better blown up so don´t be shy.

Jorge on a fun triple drop rapid


A fun slide


Uldis about to style the drop, and as with every run we are claiming a first latvian decent, but if its not let us know and we´ll retract


As Uldis would say Same,Same but different


This is a great tight drop of about 20 feet on the Rio Altotango. The put in is on this creek for 3 micro creekin drops before it confluences with the Alseseca


Jorge makes everything look good


This rapid was almost too fun.It ski launhces you into a tight slide against a wall.


Boof!


This drop has a sticky hole at the bottom that mystery moved me and my blunt for about ten seconds. It was less forgiving to others who will remain nameless.


Jorge pre boof


We spent two days on the Alseseca, but we could have spent years. After Tlapacoyan we made it down to Jalcomulco for the Rio Antigua. This river contains the Puente Pescados section of big water class four rapids with never ending surf. There is honestly more water in this river now than flowed down the Poudre all season. The waves and holes are incredibly large right now, but its not to hard to miss the meat of the drops if you want to. Downstream from Jalcomulco is the Banos Carizzal stretch. The rapids here aren´t hard, Class III, but it was the best play run I have ever been on with 3-4 quality huge surf waves in every rapid. It´s also a longer stretch, and we were exhausted at the end.

Nelson on the Puente Pescados




The Rio Alseseca entering the Bobos. We didn´t run this one.