The
Upper Alseseca had been
stuck in my mind ever since I saw the
exploration of it in
No
Big Names II: AMPED. I never
really thought I would have a chance to paddle this stretch of water,
and earlier in our trip when we couldn’t explore the Middle
Alseseca due to rain making water levels get too high, the group
paddled the Upper Upper but I was too sick and very disappointed in
missing it. After day four of exploration on the Middle Alseseca we all
enjoyed sleeping in, and then strolled down the street to meet up with
Eric Jackson, Jesse Coombs, Heather Herbek, Thayer Walker and Lucas
Gilman. With a current group size of six, these additions made our
group large for one day on the Classic Alseseca. Unfortunately Jesse
Coombs dislocated his shoulder the first day, and Phil
Boyer’s back wasn’t recovering from a strain he
picked up earlier in the trip, and both had to head home before
planned. Thayer and Lucas were on assignment from Men’s
Journal so they wouldn’t be on the water with us, although
Thayer did paddle with us a few days and surprised us all with his
proficient paddling ability. So in short our total group size was only
up one, and due to high flows we set out to do another run of the Upper
Upper Alseseca.
The
group checking out flows for the
Upper Alseseca, where fog would rule the
day.
We then proceeded down the hike in trail
that’s about a mile
and a half long, mostly downhill. The put-in here is absolutely epic if
you hike a short ways upriver from where the trail hits water level.
Eric
Jackson and Nick Troutman put in
below the two to three hundred
footer.
The upper section has some rocky rapids in
between the
bedrock drops,
so it was a little different getting a warm up dodging rocks, but we
made quick time to a tree spanning the river that marks the first
portage. Don’t go into any blind corners or you’ll
end up getting the first descent on this sixty footer that lands in a
very, very small pool.
Finding this portage route must have been quite an
adventure on the
first descent, it involves a steep climb up about sixty feet, steep
enough to need a train or rope to move boats up it.
The
group, grouping up as groups tend
to do, before the portage.
On the earlier trip the guys had cut a nice trail
through
the jungle
making the portage a lot easier, after climbing up we moved about a
hundred and fifty feet downstream on a trail. Then the going got steep,
we setup a rope and spread the team out to different points. Getting
down the steep, slippery jungle required a rope assist to climb down,
followed by lowing boats through two full pitches, into the water where
someone had to swim the first one across in a pool above a fifty
footer. We made quick time on this day since some of the group was
experienced with the portage.
Right after the portage is another portage, this time on river right,
or “The Rib”. The Rib is a fifty foot waterfall
with a funky rib sticking out a little bit in the bottom feet. In the
trailer
from No Big Names II it’s
the drop after the rafting clip, the one where Ben hits the rib and
bounces upside down.
With the higher flows Ben and Nick liked it, so we portaged to get
pictures and video. Deep dark canyons are known cause problems with
enough lighting for photographers, but the thick fog made it absurd.
Right before Ben went the fog rolled in, but he was still visible on
The Rib.
Ben Stookesberry, redemption on The Rib. It's the first rapid run in the
Hotel
Charley II trailer.
Only five minutes passed between Ben’s
run and when
Nick was
ready to drop in, but somehow the fog multiplied and we could hardly
see the waterfall from forty feet away.
Nick
Troutman, smooth run on The Rib.
To our amazement, the fog continued to get worse, and soon
enough we
couldn’t even see the bottom of the waterfall we were
standing above. I’d been dreaming of this drop since NBN II,
it was the slide into a twenty-five footer that likes to auto boof
people. We were all focused on getting our bow down, and I somehow
managed to not get my bow down and land completely upside down, a
rather painful experience. Nick and Heather both broke their paddles on
this drop, and we were a little dismayed to see we only had one
breakdown with us. Nick came to the rescue with some amazing C-1 skills
through class IV-IV+ rapids. Things in the middle blurred a bit for me,
but I remember some rocky rapids that it was nice to have high flows
on, and soon enough we were at “the pooper” and it
was raining.
If you think the pooper looks a little crazy in video, it
looks even
crazier in person. The slot after the initial ten-foot drop is so
narrow it looks like a boat might just stop in it. Thankfully kayaks do
fit through, so Eric, Nick and myself ended up running it with a
minimal degree of clean lines, no pictures taken due to heavy rain.
Class IV-V boogie water continued down to the put-in for the
Roadside Alseseca,
out take-out for
the Upper.