Altos de Copalita -- Carnage in Five Acts

Brown Water.
The kayak floated out, but I still couldn’t see Ryan. “Fuck the boat!” I yelled to Matt, who was still in his kayak. He floated in the eddy, alert. I threw my heavy boat on shore and scrambled up through vines and loose dirt and spiders up to a cliff outcropping. I was on the wrong side of the river, but on river left where I had last seen Ryan, there was nothing but sheer granite, and I didn’t see any way to get out of the river over there. I hoped, at least, that I might be able to organize something from this side.
A moment ago, Ryan was chocked up against the river-left wall, upside down. The heavy boil from the steep, narrow rapid buried his kayak, then receded. I tried to pull his boat free as I was flushed down behind him. It didn’t budge. The current swept me downstream. I saw him pop up, swimming, free from the wall. Then he disappeared again.
This was the beginning of our misfortunes on the Altos de Copalita—the first day, the first real rapid. It was late. In this part of Oaxaca in southern Mexico, the pine-oak forests that descend out of the cloudy mountains meet; here, jungle, but becoming a desert coastline in only 40 miles. It had just started to rain, hard and lucent, like at the beginning of a heavy storm. The water was already brown, but hard to tell if it was any browner than when we put on.
I was feeling useless, wrapped in thorny vines, trying to squeeze myself up through a dark crack to get to where I could come up with a plan, when I heard Ryan’s “Yipp”. He had made it up onto the gorge wall on the opposite side of the river. His kayak had gone through the next set of rapids, and we wouldn’t find it until the next day, after Ryan had hiked through the night to catch a ride back to Huatulco.




Eddies.
Eddies are a critical part of Expedition style kayaking. For the next two days, there were very few eddies where one could both get out of his kayak and get out of the gorge to scout or portage. In one such eddy, we found Ryan’s boat, its nose split wide open.
Another was a very small Last-Eddy that Evan and I got lured into. He stood waist deep in the water and held our boats, trying not to get hit by the falling rock I let loose as I climbed up the ravine. The rapid was unrunnable, but for a while we clung to our hopes of escaping the canyon that day. First, Matt lowered me on live bait to check out a river right semi-portage that was hazardous but possibly much quicker than the ravine route. That being no good, we made an intimidating ferry back across to Evan, who held a throw-rope that was small comfort. After two hours of hauling up the ravine, we were cutting beds into the jungle mountainside with hands raw and pulpy from rope-hauling our heavy kayaks. We left ourselves just enough light to find a spring in the ravine, and filled our bellies with water.
That night, in the dark, much was left up to the imagination; the jungle was as loud as the rumble coming up from the river. During the day, I wore a drytop and pants tucked into socks. I spend my days hot, but heat never attacks like ants. Similarly, to sleep, I zipped up tight in my bivy-sac and traded heavy sweat for unmolested skin.

Jungle-Desert.
Henrys 5 Star Accommodations

When we woke up in the jungle, it was late when we broke from the jungle camp—it took a long time to do the little things like make coffee and take shits when vines impede every movement.
On our way back down to the river, we were rested, and in the light the first thing I noticed was the life: there were these amazing spiders, with brilliant colors, and especially brilliant webs, which were gold and iridescent. There were caterpillars that to the naked eye couldn’t have been told from a stick, and some that look like what kids make in art classes, clownishly huge and colorful. There were ants that had a fiery yellow on their backs and behind, and Evan—in a loud panic—had to pull one of those from his neck.
Toward the end of the day, we had another very hard portage. We had been running some heavy but very good whitewater when we got to a rapid in which up, through the jungle, was the only option. There—or at least at that elevation—it wasn’t just that the vegetation was so thick—it was the vines, which grabbed feet and necks and paddles. They made you trip and drop your boat, and some of them had big hard thorns that made you bleed, and some had little ones that left your hands with fifty little prickers that stayed in until they festered and swelled. At the river we ran a big rapid that we wouldn’t have if we could have kept portaging. It was a big hole. Trashing likely, we count on our heavy boats for momentum. “Fire it up, Edog!” I said to Evan, trying to convince myself as well. Matt and I ran out front, together, and we both get hammered—but the good kind of hammered, the getting out of the hole-hammered. Evan did the same.

Gringos Perdidos.

One omitted detail here is that the previous parties to kayak this stretch of the Copalita—at least two—have done it in one, long day, with unloaded boats, and—we think—at much lower water. We had packed for three days just in case, but really were fixing on two. After our third night in the gorge, we had plenty of food, but we were getting late for our pickup, which we hoped Ryan had gotten out to.

Matt Willson trying to get himself and his 90lbs watercraft, back to the water. On one of many hellish portages

Our plan was to call on the satellite phone. This was the kind of trip where plans go to die—the phone didn’t work.
Early the next morning, we emerged from the gorge, and found our friend Ariel bushwacking upriver with a machete and a partner. Ariel was one of a group of river guides from the Rancho Tangolunda that had come out to help Ryan look for us. The Rancho guides work the Alemania stretch of the river just downstream, which was still way too high for commercial trips.
Waiting by the river, I found myself staring at the river and making up forms. Every butterfly turned my head, and I heard voices and yelps coming from the rumble of the river. I pulled ticks and brushed flies to pass the time, and hung out with the group of guides, and Lino, one of the owners of the raft company. We ate tostadas and sardines by the big concrete structure and a big tube that came out of the river bank, with two thick powerlines coming down the hill from above. Lino took Ariel and the others back that night, and left us with our Suburban, to wait for Ryan and company.

Palo Malo.
The next morning, we were sitting in the suburban. Matt looked over at me, his face ballooned from either bee stings, which he had gotten setting safety the second day, or else the mysterious palo malo—the bad tree whose shadow, the locals say, is enough to infect the skin.
Matt said, “I’m going to start it up.”
I said, “OK.”
Matt said, “Just to see, you know.”
The suburban wouldn’t start. The fuel pump was bad, which we didn’t know, but we did have reason to believe we were out of gas. Later that morning, as I was failing at catching fish in the muddy water, two electrical workers showed up in a new white Ford. At the little compound at the top of the hill, where we were buying our food now, Matt borrowed a mangera—a hose, and they let us try to siphon some gas. On the first few sucks, the acrid fumes went straight up the hose to my brain. Mexican Fords have a little grate to keep out siphon hoses. I kept trying, and got a big mouthful of gas, although not enough to get a flow. I coughed and spat, but saved a little face by smiling and saying how sabrosa es la gasolina—how tasty. The electrical workers, who came to the pumping station once a year, thought this was hilarious.
It wasn’t long after the white Ford left that the Ryan, Guara, Gabo, and Burre—the rescue party—came into view at the upstream bend in the river. They had hiked into the bottom of the gorge and had spent two days walking down the river—much like we had only nonstop, no kayaks. Together, we drank all the beer the old lady in the tienda would sell us, and ate them out of their green-corn tortillas, eggs, and sardine cans. In the middle of the night, Lino arrived with a mechanic, who got our gas going in the dark. Ryan drove out the suburban, to meet us the next day at the Alemania-section takeout, where we could get Matt and his swelling skin to a hospital and our team and all our ticks, parasites, and blisters, back together again.


Story By: Henry Munter
Photos By: Evan Ross

Skiing The Beautiful Twin 3/11/09

The Upper half of the Beautiful Twin 3/11/09

Twin Peaks, Indipendince Pass, Sawatch Mountains, Colorado

I’ve been staring in awe at Twin Peak and the direct ski line off the summit this winter. Every time I’ve driven up Independence Pass my body’s entered a natural high as I visualize myself ripping turn on the upper face. Meanwhile, hands shaking and a case of shrinkage… Of ones size relative to this earth that is. Wile wondering just how steep the upper face was and the uncertainty if two blind pinches in the lower couloir. Would they go free, or turn technical with steep ice and rock?

The constant 100mpr Sawatch wind all winter long. Combined with lack of snow at lower elevations made me wonder if there ever would be a window of opportunity to satisfy my growing desire for this twin, or would it grow into an increasingly distant dream of mine?

Skiing in the last several days was turning out surprisingly good. Thanks to two winter storms that deposited a whopping 8 inches on average in the area. Most winter recreationist would wine about the snow reports and search for some other sport to pursue. Yet for the lucky few of us not pulling our mountain bikes out of storage, we know something they don’t. This type of snow setup, a few inches of pow on top of a hard and bomber snowpack, is perfect for summiting bigger peaks and pushing yourself on those burlier lines you’ve been dreaming about all winter. Skiing a little powder off the summits that make up our beautiful Rocky Mountains? Sing me up!

Thanks to this slow economy and my friends at work taking shifts from me left and right, I find myself forced to go skiing most of the week. Bummer. So the start of this past week started off with 3 days of superb sherralping, and three different lines on Star Mountain.

Tiff on Star Mountain earlier in the week

Myself on another line off Star Mountain earlier in the weak

These days of superb riding were leaving me giggly with the possibility that my day with the Beautiful Twin may be arriving.

So there I was, lying in bed sore from the last few days of skiing. Selling myself on the fact that tomorrow is that weather window I’ve been waiting for all winter to ski the Twin. Although you do have to be to work tomorrow at 4pm and getting up any earlier then 7am would be ruff on my 24 year old bones, the voices in my head were arguing.

So there I was, sitting on the East Ridge of Twin Peek. 600ft below the summit at 1pm. Having spent the last several hours slogging through thick, steep trees in knee deep, low elevation sugar snow, and making extremely slow and tiresome upward progress. So I turn on the cell phone, amazed to find service to call in late to work. I still have an hour and a half drive to work and am uncertain how long the decent will take me. If it turn technical in its hidden lower reaches, it could be hours I don’t have.

The phone beeps “one new message,” seeming eager to tell me that my manager to be that night is home sick. So there’s no one to cover if I’m late and the current employee on, needs to go early. Not being able to stomach the idea of retreating down this swag ridge, back to my car so I can make it to work on time. I stumble like a drunken man with a purpose, through loose scree to the summit of Twin Peek.

Finally atop twin peak and amazed to find deep, soft powder off the summit wile looking 4,000ft to my car waiting to break a few traffic laws to get me to work on time. I found true bliss in those first few turns off the summit. Steep hero snow above an uncertain line, will render anyone with an unforgettable natural high.

The quality snow and the Beautiful Twin led me on a path to one of the most aesthetic backcountry ski lines of my career. A steep and exposed upper face leading into a rollercoaster of a lower couloir, will stick with me as one of my greatest natural highs in life.

The lower line on the Beautiful Twin


Looking back to the last pinch

Four days Of Skiing In The Weminuche 3/28/09

View of Upper Noname Creek Drainage

Tyler (aka sickbird) and I just returned from a four day ski trip in the Weminuche Wilderness of the San Juan Mountains. We started our tour by skiing to the Animas River from the East side of Snowden Peek. Followed the unfortunately, mostly dry rail road tracks to Noname Creek and spent our days skiing at the top of the Noname Drainage on Animas Mountain and Peak 14 (Scepter Peak). Unfortunately the lack of a good snow year left us short of reaching our skiing goals and we'll simply have to return another year in more favorable conditions.

Photo summery below:

Tyler skinning toward Snowden Peak

Looking down to the Animas from near the east side of Snowden

Crossing the Animas River
The top half of the Scepter Coulair. A lack of time and snow left us short of this beauty. Has anyone out there had the privlage to ski the Scepter top to bottom?


Bottom half of the Scepter


Tyler in the Gash Coulair off Animas Mountain


The long walk to meet the Train at Cascade Creek