Tlapacoyan, Vera Cruz

Sickness raged again on monday and I missed a day of scouting another section of the unrun Middle Alseseca. Today we had two others down with illness, but Nick Troutman, Rafa Ortiz, Ben Stookesberry and myself got on another section. Our first paddle strokes were after a long scout and video/photo setup for a tricky twenty footer that led into a near verticle sixty foot slide. I personally was nervous as hell for this one, the entrance was tough and involved a cave feature, and from above the slide looked bouncy and shallow in parts of the landing. Thankfully all things went well for us and the drop was amazing. We portaged a monster downstream that had a long IV lead in that dropped a total of twenty feet or so into a spouting, auto-boofing eighty foot plus drop. We ended up doing a big throw and go that was exciting enough in itself. Downstream the Alseseca dissapeared into a lava tube and emerged downstream about forty yards. A confluence came in after this, and we ran a beautiful perfectly clean slide that dropped around thirty feet and was enjoyed by all. A mellow class IV paddle out followed, although the gorge stayed tight for a while. We eventually reached our footbridge destination, and in three days have officially completed half of what we had planned as a two day trip. Two major steep sections of the Alseseca are behind us, and one lies ahead for tommorow although the gorge does not look as tight. The gorges have been amazing on the river, in some places only 20-30 feet wide and hundreds tall, thankfully we have allways been able to find a way to scout drops so far, although some are long and tedious.

Jefferson State Creeking