March 2, 2010

4th Annual Brazil Waterfall Expedition: part 2

 

 Kokatat Ambassadors Ben Stookesberry and Chris Korbulic check in from Brazil:

 

Text Ben Stookesberry

Photos Chris Korbulic

3/1/10 - Mato Grosso, Brazil

 

Despite many areas experiencing the most rain in 80 years, Sao Paulo’s freeways and the thoroughfares through Brazil’s expansive interior were in as good of shape as I have seen them.  The rivers on the other hand are incredibly full and treacherous, with our first descent of the Expedition demonstrating the true power of a Central Brazilian river.  At or near the scour line, the Rio Das Mortes (River of the Dead) sped into the jungle with 15 – 20 thousand cfs at the put-in.  Surrounding the river corridor of thick jungle are massive Agricultural complexes; however, the riparian vegetation has been maintained throughout the watershed so even at this extremely high flow the water is transparent and appeared quite clean. 

 

Three years ago during my first trip to Mato Grosso a local kayaker told me about this unrun section of river, containing the big class V we like.  Finally, a month ago I came across the whitewater laced canyon on Google Earth located in the upper watershed near where we would enter Mato Grosso from Sao Paulo.  

 

From the satellite photo I saw massive deforestation around the river and expected to be overwhelmed by the destruction of the natural Serrado forest. Once on the ground though, I began to see the place through the eyes of the extremely hospitable land owners and farm workers that have developed the area for the last 50 years.  These are the people we have to thank for many of the conveniences of the modern world, i.e. the supermarket.  

 

In addition to providing us with directions for put-in and take-out, the gracious farmers took us up in a crop duster to give us a look at the dense jungle canyon of the Das Mortes.  From the air at about 85 miles an hour and 60 – 150 feet off the deck the river looked huge but very manageable.  At about 15 – 20 miles an hour and a torso length off the boiling, swollen current, things looked very different from the seat of our Super Heroes.  

 

This incredible descent of a big water canyon on the edge of the Amazon could not have provided a more exhilarating and informative start to the trip.  Unfortunately the Das Mortes River and its intact jungle corridor is slated for inundation by hydro-electric development over the next 5 – 10 years.  From this first encounter with river, jungle, and agricultural plantation it seems that the biggest threat to the Amazon now is from the promise of “cheap and clean” hydro power.  The biggest example of this is a massive neighbor to the Amazon called the Xingu.  Once dammed, the Xingu will be the third largest dammed river on the planet.  

 

Through the rest of the journey into the Amazon we will be in search of more amazing rivers, and more perspectives from agricultural concerns to the indigenous peoples of the area that are entrusted with the last natural expanses of rainforest.

February 24, 2010

4th Annual Brazil Waterfalling Expedition

 

Team Kokatat’s Ben Stookesberry and Chris Korbulic check in from Brazil- why we love to kayak…

Today (Feb 24th, 2010) we head Northwest of our current position in the heart of the second largest city on earth to the largest tropical wilderness on earth, the storied Amazon Basin. Just under a 100 years ago an expedition including ex-president Theodore Roosevelt, and led by famous Brazilian Colonel Cândido Randon took two months to penetrate the unmapped southern reaches of the Amazon basin following the Telegraph line that Randon’s regiment had constructed the year before. Today, remnants of those same telegraph lines are visible in Google Earth, but also visible is a 100 years worth of burn and clear tactics that have eaten away at the emerald green edge of trackless forest. Now connected to the economic center of the country by a network of interstate style thoroughfares that eventually degrade into unpaved and often impassable transamazonian mud pits, it should only take 19 hours of non-stop driving to reach our first destination in the huge central state of Mato Grosso. This is where a ever expanding peneplane of soy meets the still intact Chapada forest and the stunning crystal clear tributaries of the Amazon.

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This trip, as in the previous 2, we are led by Brazilian Pedro Oliva in search of some of the largest runnable waterfalls on earth, both by height and volume. Of course, with the developments last spring, the task of establishing a world record has increased many times in difficulty and danger. I say difficulty because simply finding a drop above 45 -55 meters is a task in itself and danger because the speed at which one would hit the water would be in excess of 100 miles per hour. Tyler Bradt made it with a perfect line and drop selection, but the massive hit begs the question of survival of a higher fall.

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At the end of the day the goal of the trip is not to break records, but rather to advocate preservation of the world’s rivers and explore new venues for a discipline that already boasts the most diverse set of experiences of any sport. From hardcore multi-day mountaineering-style descents of the Himalaya, Andes, Alps, and Sierra Nevada; to the massive freestyle features of Eastern Canada, Africa, ect.; to the adrenaline injected world-class waterfalling of the Colombia River Gorge, Mexico, Chile, and now Brazil. To every variation imaginable on those themes, ours is a sport of unlimited opportunities and possibilities from our own back yards to the other side of the planet. This is why I love to kayak.

January 28, 2010

India Recap

Kokatat Ambassadors Jesse Coombs, Chris Korbulic, Darin McQuoid, and Ben Stookesberry just got home from exploring  Himalayan rivers in Sikkim, India. Chris Korbulic gives us a recap of the trip.
Ben on the Teesta

Ben on the Teesta

“We finished driving the frosty road to Thangu early in the morning while the ice in the stream had not yet melted and the grassy hillsides were still glistening in the morning light. We could see snow-covered towers of the Himalaya up and downstream, and the new light was slowly marching across the brown Thangu Valley, nearing the river and our already warming hands. The four of us were drinking chai and eating Maggi soup in a small room, full to almost overflowing with us, a table, three local women around a small fire, and the excitement and apprehension of being so close to our first strokes on the Teesta River.

By the time we were warmed inside and out, sunlight was pouring through cracks in the walls, and we walked on travel weary legs to our vehicle and kayaks in the brilliant light, uncut and raw at our elevation of 14,000 feet. The Teesta at this elevation looked more like a creek, but still surprised us with its power and continuous nature. Our first day paddling was less a warm-up than a reminder of how different a river can feel than how it can look from the road, the bank, or from the top of a rapid.

A chilly breeze from the mountains was whipping the legions of prayer flags as we walked through the hamlet and summertime pasture lands to a flat spot on the river where we could access the icy flow from a small boulder bar. Immediately downstream the river was beginning it’s precipitous drop from the Thangu Valley to its eventual confluence with the Brahmaputra River. Jesse and Darin took to the water right away, and soon Ben and I followed through a short section of Class III until our first horizon line and scout. This first rapid set the standard for the day, and the whole river as a technical, powerful rapid that forced us to make critical moves, and flowed immediately into the next smoking horizon line. This was the Teesta, and it was not on our side!

We passed innumerable small confluences, and at the end of the first 8 kilometer day the creek had grown significantly. The Teesta began to have the characteristic push and powerful surge of a larger river. In many places it would plunge into a ravine with sheer and gnarled walls, writhing, showing patterns of the intense geological forces that formed the Himalayas. In the following days we paddled downstream sections, guarded top and bottom by impossibly steep cascading whitewater and gorges. We were forced to portage multiple times every day by the similarly steep and sieve-filled rapids. The runnable whitewater was some of the most spectacular and demanding any of us had ever paddled, and forced us to pay the strictest attention to details of the river and our own energy levels.

Cold water and weather at high elevation (at 7000 feet) was a major issue, and sapped energy and warmth surprisingly fast. The river canyon remained shaded most of the day, and at these altitudes in the Himalayan autumn the difference between sun and shade was striking. There could be frost at noon in the shade, whereas across the river you might find a lizard sunning on the warm rocks.

Our time on the Teesta was rounded out by a relatively mellow day putting in at one of the many hydroelectric projects on the lower stretches of river. There was still Class V, but there were also pools, offering a welcome relief to our adrenaline soaked nerves and tired bodies.

This cold water and weather trip would not have been possible without the support of Kokatat and their amazing gear that kept us warm and comfortable from morning to night. A flm of this trip and more will be featured in the next Clear H2o Productions coming this spring.”

November 24, 2009

Tawang Chu River Expedition

Team Kokatat is our group of sponsored whitewater and sea kayaking athletes, with backgrounds and stories as mixed as their skill sets. These athletes travel the globe competing and exploring, trusting their safety and comfort to a mix of Kokatat products and apparel. Here Ben Stookesberry gives us a glimpse at his Tawang Chu River documentary…

The five part series documents Ben and Kokatat Ambassador Chris Korbulic’s first descent of the Tawang Chu River through India and Bhutan in December of 2008. Ben shares this never before seen footage presented in full HD from one of his biggest adventures.

….Two kayakers, Ben Stookesberry and Chris Korbulic, arrive in a remote corner of Arunachal Pradesh, India to attempt a complete descent of the Twang Chu River. With limited permitting options and only a few extremely remote access points along the way, the pair prepares for a two week long self support mission into 130 miles of unknown river.

 

In part one we join them just as they are entering the Tawang Valley from the 13,700 foot Se La or Sky Pass. The Tawang valley is world famous for its colorful enclaves of Buddhist followers that have all gravitated to the world’s second largest Monastery perched high on the canyon wall at over 10,000 feet of elevation.

This episode covers the first two days of boating on the river with plenty of big, steep, boulder choked rapids booked marked by long portages and hemmed in by the remote populous that have probably never seen westerners before, let alone the sport of whitewater kayaking.

Day 2 on the water (and part one of this series) ends in a significant section of rapids exposed to road-building 2500 feet over head. Luckily workers from the road descend to the river to offer the team food and a place to stay for the cold wet night to come. After enjoying some local food, the village head man put’s the far flung American’s up in the village Stupa for the nights rest.

Enter Tawang Chu Part: 1 from Ben Stookesberry on Vimeo.

Pick up the action in Part two of this series, as Ben and Chris plug ever deeper into the Tawang Chu, and closer to the forbidden and extremely remote border with Bhutan.

Day 3 begins as suddenly as it had ended at the small Buddhist enclave of Trilung Gompa. The caretaker, who fed Ben and Chris, rouses the pair early with a piercing Buddhist horn. The whole community comes out to see the pair off as they embark on yet another day of NF Payette type whitewater, still carrying more than two weeks worth of food.

Half-way through the day a steep walled canyon appears on the horizon, sending the pair scrambling for a better look. Just a year ago Ben ran into Mike Abbot and Allan Ellard after their attempt on the same section of river. Supposedly their attempt had ended at a shear walled gorge that sent them hiking out of the Canyon 10 km short of the Bhutan Border.

After the extended scout, Ben and Chris deem the gorge manageable at the river level and proceed cautiously to the night 3 camp, still 15 – 20 km from the Bhutan Border.

Enter Tawang Chu Part 2: Day3 from Ben Stookesberry on Vimeo.

From camp 3, Ben and Chris push off into the Heart of Tawang Chu, having little idea about what was in store for them. Over 10 grueling hours on the river, the pair makes an exhaustive push for the border with Bhutan. With the last of the light fading, they catch a glimpse of what they think is the confluence and make a hasty camp among boulders and tall wet grass.

The next morning they take their visual proximity to the border to mean that the day will be a short one, wanting to wait until early the following morning to actually cross the border. To their chagrin, just 1 km downstream of this night 4 camp is a class 5+ cascade leading into a steep walled gorge. On top of this, an Indian army outpost is perched right at the brink of the gorge and threatens Ben and Chris’s hopes to cross the border under the cover of the river.

Enter Tawang Chu Part 3: The Heart of Tawang Chu from Ben Stookesberry on Vimeo.

More info on the GORE-TEX Meridian dry suit with relief zipper and socks here (click for link).

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