Mexico City, Mexico


Twenty-one days in the State of Vera Cruz, Mexico. Over five thousand total pictures taken, fourteen swims, five broken paddles, one lost paddle, one broken boat, more bug bites that imaginable, the Middle Alseseca Mission was completed on Friday, November 10th. The weather cooperated with several more dry days for our group to finish the mission. Thursday saw us planning to finish the Middle Alseseca with a 2-3k run, but after only 1k we came upon another walled in gorge with class II-III rapids leading around a blind corner. Prudence reigned supreme since this section was un-run and we started a long scout involving a near verticle climb of 250' to get out of the canyon. The several hour scout revealed an amusing, amazingly tight class II-III canyon that was only about a half kilometer long. We quickly ran this and were at the infamous forty foot waterfall from Burning Time I or II, I'm not sure which. We scouted it a bit and it looked ugly, but evenetually Ben Stookesberry fired it off and avoided the ugly undercut left wall. The rest of us decided to sleep on it and we hiked to the car with plans on returning to finish the run on Friday.
Friday morning blessed us with good light for shooting and a group motivated by a good nights sleep. Eric Jackson stepped it up and cleaned it with a beautiful line, followed by myself and Nick Troutman, all lines clean of carnage. We regrouped just downstream and headed off into the unknown, expecting moderate gradient and one possible gorge. We ran a few good ones downstream, but that will have to be told in the future. Details and regular trip reports including pictures from the Middle Alseseca mission will be coming up in the next few weeks as I slog through my 750 photographs on a slow computer. Video of this mission will be in Clear H2O Films "Hotel Charlie: River of Doubt" which will avaible at Clear H2O Films and Jackson Kayak in late spring 2007. Wish me luck as I return from tropical bug ridden Mexico weather to: "THE OREGON STATE POLICE REPORT THE FOLLOWING UPDATE OF CONDITIONS ON I 5:
CHAINS ARE REQUIRED ON ALL VEHICLES EXCEPT 4-WHEEL-DRIVE VEHICLES WITH SNOW
TIRES ON ALL 4 WHEELS OVER THE SISKIYOU MTNS" At least the bugs will be mellow eh?

Jefferson State Creeking