East fork into the South fork Salmon, Idaho

Flight simulator on the East Fork.



Scouting Devils creek rapid.




Found some big holes.




Falls creek rapid lead out, 5 miles from the confluence with the main Salmon.

Phoenix a tribute to an animal that touched my soul

When I first met the Hernandez family, Phoenix was the hardest member of the family to get to know, she seemed to be judging me to see if I was worthy of her time. Over time she warmed up to me and I still remember the first time she walked over my chest while I was lying in bed, as if to say ' Your OK'

I knew very quickly that if I were only to know the Hernandez family for just 1 day, it would be an honor to do so, Phoenix has always been a very powerful part of that honor, she was no ordinary cat. We all know, weather or not we are cat people that cats are extraordinary animals, incredible athlete's, the perfect predator, but Phoenix was not like other cats in that way, she seemed to have let go of being one way or another or of even being a cat, she just was.

When she become sick she really showed her undeniable strength of just being. She was truly enlightened and a lesson for us all. She spent her days lying on her pillow a master of meditation and sleep. She was in pain and it only grew worse, but she never complained or seemed to feel sorry for herself, even with what seemed like half of her body over taken by cancer, she found the strength to go on short walks and visit her favorite place where we now lay her to rest.

I believe that this little 6 pound cats was a true sage, she could have chosen to die at any time, but she was thankful to Heather and seven and maybe even me, she waited, waited until we especially Heather was ready. Even in her last moments she held on until we told her it was time, that it was OK, it was the most remarkable feat of strength I have ever seen. And all on behave of human frailty, a moment of undeniable compassion.

In the vets room were she finally past away, I was amazed and humbled yet again by Phoenix, as the vet explained that she might whine or make some kind of noise due to the injection, but Phoenix past away in utter peace, although the room was filled with sadness, I felt a strong sense of peace emanating from her, it was like her soul was watching, waiting, making sure everything was what it should be. And then she left on a journey that none of us can imagine, to me it did not feel like death but like birth, like something out of this ordinary world that she was finally able to achieve, I have never felt such a sad time feel so peaceful and all from the power of this tiny little cat.

Her death was not easy, it was both long and painful as well as very sudden and shocking, I hope if I am ever in as difficult a place that I have half the strength to die with such dignity and peace.

We should remember that Phoenix,s body has died but Phoenix her self, her energy, will never die.
Because of this I want to finish my tribute with this quote, but before I read it, I want to say that I believe Phoenix has reached the last stage of this quote, she is beyond anything we know.

Here's to her and her family, I am honoured to have been a small part of her life.


I died from minerality and became vegetable.
And from vegetativeness I died and became animal.
I died from animality and become man.
Then why fear disappearance through death ?
Next time I shall die
Bringing forth wings and feathers like angles;
After that, soaring higher than angels -
What you cannot imagine,
I shall be that.

- Mevlana Jelalu'ddin Rumi.

Celestial.

Rio Paucartambo Peru

“The bus is full, the next one leaves on Saturday” This was not what we wanted to hear, “What day is it today? “ I asked Jonathon we had been traveling in Peru long enough now to have lost track of the days of the week, just the way I like it to be.
“I think it’s Wednesday “he replied. “That sucks” I said “we need to leave tomorrow morning at the latest”

“Well let’s find a private ride” he said. From then on Jonathon was on a mission to find the 5 of us a ride to the Paucartambo River in Peru.
He succeeded and we left that afternoon on a 4 hour ride to a bridge just downstream of a town that shares the same name as the river.

We got there by dark and camped by the river below a small village where most of the adults spoke only quichua a native language, only the kids had learnt to speak Spanish.

We woke early the next morning and put on a fairly small river flowing at about 7 to 800 CFS.
I had wanted to run this river ever since I saw a film of the first descent completed in the early 1980’s
What I didn’t know was that this river would turn out to be one of the best multi day runs I have ever done.

The Paucartambo starts way up in the mountains at around 10 000 feet about 200 miles later it flows into the Urubamba river way down in the upper Amazon basins jungle.
On its journey it flows through remote and difficult canyons, once it gets going after a flat water paddle at the start, it barely ever stops, endless perfect white water with only a few portages mostly solid class 4/4+ with some fantastic class 5 rapids thrown in on a fairly frequent basis.

I catch an eddy right above what appeared to be a 20 foot drop, I had been leading for a while now pushing into rapids without scouting trying to move quickly, we had 7 days worth of food but were late in the season, it was November and the wet season could arrive any time no one wants to be on this river when its high and it could flash in a matter of hours.
Looking over my shoulder I realized that this time I had over committed and because I was just 4 feet from the lip of the drop I could see from my boat that the drop had no exit the whole river disappeared under huge boulders.
I gave a stop signal to my friends; Ben scouted the rapid from the opposite bank, and immediately told me it didn’t go.
There was a cliff above me making it difficult to get out, but a ledge about 10 feet up offered me my only option, I managed to climb up dragging my boat with me, and continued to climb up stream to ferried over to join the others in our first Portage.

Just downstream a huge class 5 rapid took us an hour to scout and only 30 seconds to run.
After more big rapids on the limit of being boat scoutable we reach another huge rapid where 90 % of the water slammed into a huge boulder after dropping over a evil looking ledge, we were tired and decided to camp here amounst the boulders in the heart of Orange canyon a appropriately name canyon due to all the rocks being colored orange, we were never sure why but guessed it might be some kind of mineral in the water because only the rocks that were under or had at some time been under the water were colored Orange, a weird looking phenomenon.
Orange Canyon was full of sieves but we got through it the next day and entered a flatter area for a while before entering another steep canyon.
More great white water, and a fabulous, scenic canyon, one time I remember floating between rapids in this deep beautiful canyon , I looked up and put my arms up in the air feeling the joy of just being in this place.

Day 3 on the river proved to be the biggest including a section flowing at 250 feet per mile, with what was now about 1800 CFS.

I stalled in a big hole, got threw it but had lost all my speed and I was blinded by the water, instinct and the look of the rapid from the eddy above it, told me there was another drop coming up I had time for one stroke and then I hit a much bigger second hole, fortunately my kayak went deep really deep under the hole, it resurfaced quickly but clear of the hole, I was lucky, and had time to send the other’s on a different route through the same rapid.

We reached a huge class 6 rapid that required a portage over big lose boulders at the bottom of a land slide, portages often seem more difficult and dangerous to me than actually kayaking the big rapids and here I took a big fall while carrying my loaded boat hitting my head on a sharp rock, my helmet saved me.

Shortly after our portage we were scouting once again, this time in a walled in canyon.
The first part was unrunnable but fortunately portagable, the second part looked like it was good to go but at first glance was impossible to scout.
We were all unsure how bad the holes we would have to run looked from are vantage point upstream of the rapid.
“Where do we go” asked Ben “I’m not sure but we will figure it out” I said trying to sound confident, really I had no idea and got in my boat not sure where I was going but felt if a ferried around a bit above the rapid it might become clear.
There was a small cove in the cliff wall just downstream of the eddy I was in, the water was whirling around and getting pushed around the corner into a giant hole the worse spot on the rapid, however there was also a rock ledge where I could get out and climb downstream to scout.
I managed to back my boat into the cove and found a hand hold on the ledge, Todd threw me a rope that I could attach to my boat in case it got away from me while I was getting out, getting out of your boat on to a small ledge while its bouncing around in a whirl pool that your convinced is a plughole into a sieve is not easy, at least not mentally, but somehow I found myself and my boat on the ledge.
It took a while and some rock climbing to be able to scout the rapid but eventually I came back to within sight of my friends with the good news -- the rapid was good to go.
Some of the crew still didn’t like the idea and now I was in a position to help them portage so they took that option, Jonathan and I ran the rapid and we all ran another easier rapid that allowed us to exit the canyon, out into the sunlight and to a perfect beach for camping at the end of are longest day.

Fun white water continued on our 4th day and the next day we had half a day more on the river and we made it down to the confluence with the Urubamba River.


The Puacartambo River here at the confluence had close to 5000 CFS, it was amazing to think that just 4 and half days ago we put on in the mountains with around 700 CFS!

There is a road at the confluence that eventually would get us back to Cuzco but all the locals we met said they would be no bus, however there would be a 40 foot motorized canoe going upstream at 5 in the morning, we camped in the yard of a local family living in a bamboo hut raising chicken and gathering fruit from the jungle.

The Canoe arrived just as the sun was coming up the next day, he stopped and picked the 5 of us and all our kayaks up, and there was more than enough room in his giant canoe.
He powered upstream against around 8 to 10 000 CFS, ferrying from eddy to eddy he had impressive skill, soon we reach a part of the road that the buses do drive to and then had to with stand about 17 hours on two different buses back to Cuzco, riding not far from the famous Inca ruins of Machu Picchu.

The Paucartambo was easily one of the best river journeys of my life and my friends shared my sentiments.
I would like to thanks them for making this happen. I paddled with-- Todd Collins, Ben West, Jonathon Blum and Scott Baker.

Rio Cotahuasi Peru

The Cotahuasi river in southern Peru is said to flow through the deepest canyon on earth, it is a spectucalar canyon and a magical experience.

Great continous white water flows almost the entire distance from put in to take out, endless class 4 rapids.

In a few spots the river is only 1 meter or 3 feet wide and yet the surrounding canyon walls are 10, 000 feet tall!

It is a committing run with a long hike in with mules to portage 300 foot Sepia falls.

After we ran the upper reaches of the Cotahuasi [ previous posts ] we joined the rest of our team at the put in for a 5 day run down the main Canyon, we had 7 kayakers a river boarder, 1 gear boat and one paddle raft.

The river in October was low, still really good for Kayaking but our rafts had a few problems including flips and one bad wrap.

Every night we camped under the stars amongst giant boulders or one time at an old Inca ruin!

It has to be one of the best multi day trips in the world, I want to go back.

Flat water Canyon , Rio Cotahuasi , Peru

Flat water canyon on the Cotahuasi river lies just upstream of the normal put in for the multi day section of the same river.


Its name would suggest that it would not be of much interest to a white water kayaker, but it is far from flat, it fact it has some great class 4 and 5 white water.





It got its name from a group that scouted the canyon from the rim and thought they saw nothing but flat water, the next group who found a way in and had this information and expected a mellow trip but instead found a classic white water run, Seeing the funny side they named it Flat water canyon.





We had just completed a upper section of the Cotahuasi before we hiked into the normal cotahuasi put in and caught up with the rest of out group ready to start a 5 day trip on this run.


Our big group all camped together at the put in. We had left our kayaks at the start of the trail, there were no mules left to take them and so we had made arrangements for them to come in on the mules the next morning.


Because of this we realised we had an opportunity to get up early, hike half way back up the trail and meet the kayak carrying mules coming in, then hopefully find the put in to flat water canyon.


Todd had not kayaked the day before with us so his kayak was already in, he really wanted to run the canyon and so between us we carried his kayak back up the trail with us.


About 2 hours later we came to what we believed was the trail of off the canyon rim down to a feasible put in.


There were a few locals walking the trail to the very small villages that dot the canyon in this area. We asked them if they had seen our mules carrying kayaks, 1 person said " yeah, they will be here in 15 minutes " another said that they had not left the trial head yet and would be 2 1/2 hours!? Ha , welcome to south America I thought, no one really knows but they all want to help and would never say " nope, sorry I don't know " most move to there default answer " media hora " they say -- half an hour, most things in South America if you ask the locals seem to take half an hour even when they take 5 hours or more. Knowing this we all sat down on the trail in the baking sun and waited.


This time we got lucky and I had to take back my thoughts because 15 minutes later we spotting our kayaks bobbing along on the backs of very hardy mules.


We talked to the mule drivers and fortunately they knew exactly where we were trying to go and knew where the trail was, we were in the right place and they were able to take the mules down to the rim, from here we had to shoulder the boats as the trail is way to steep for mules, one of the mules drivers even showed us the way down and helped us at the really steep parts of the trail, with our kayaks.


The trial was the worse part of this whole run, steep with lose dirt, and the wind was so strong it came close to knocking me of my feet as it would gust against my kayak on my shoulder which acted like a big sail.

Th run itself was really fun continuous white water, technical at this low flow, mostly class 4 - 4+ with maybe 1 or 2 rapids in the class 5 range.

We took out at our camp site after another great day on the water.

The rest of are crew were either resting or visiting the local village perched high on the canyon rim.

We decided to stay here one more night, and start the lower section of the Cotahuasi the next day.

Upper Cotahuasi Peru

These are shots from 2 different sections on the upper Cotahuasi in southern Peru.

The true Upper was creeky sieve avoiding class 4 and 5.

The other was a short but really good section of class 4 with 1 class 5 rapid we took out were the hike into the 5 day section on the Cotahausi starts, however it would be possible to keep going down to Sepia falls, portage the falls which is a huge multi teared drop and would be a long fairly brutal portage.
Then put back on and run Flat water canyon [ coming up in another post ] into the 5 day section.
We had a group ahead of us doing the hike in and so needed to catch up, when we reached the take out one of our mules who was loaded with a lot of our food had been left behind so we became mule drivers for the rest of the day. The hike past the Falls is spectacular.

The Rio Cotahuasi offers incredible amounts of white water we managed to run a lot of it, but there is a lot we didn't get to. Got to get back there. Peru is Amazing.









Photos below = the short section above the start of the traditional hike in to the classic 5 day run