Nearly 100 hours of flying and layovers and I am back home after a whirlwind tour of some of the best bigwater playboating rivers in the world. The trip started off with a 14 hour layover in Paris on new years eve. I bought a metro pass and sampled the best pastry and coffee shops while checking out the amazing art and architecture that Paris is famous for.
Tired as hell I slept all the way to Johannesburg where I met up with Eric Jackson. We caught a flight to Livingston Z
ambia to start our paddling and filming adventure on the Zambezi River. On my last trip to Africa I was on a budget and stayed in a cheap hostel, dorm style room, barely getting sleep because of the heat and sleeping under mosquito nets. This time would be different, EJ had worked a sponsorship deal with the Zambezi Sun, a four star hotel located on the edge of Victoria Falls. This is where we based for the next 11 days, filming with Jay Kincaid, Jessie Stone, and Clay Wright. I must say I have never had it so easy on a paddling trip.
Our days went as follows; wake up in a cold air conditioned room under lots of blankets, walk to the restaurant for coffee, custom made omelets and waffles, carry boating gear through the hotel gate past the lip of Victoria falls, down a jungle trail past monkeys to the put in below the falls. We then paddled and filmed all day, surfed huge waves and were met by porters at the take out and shuttled us back to the hotel. We then went swimming in the pool or sat on the deck above the falls drinking beers an
d watching hippos and crocs while monkeys steal our beer nuts.
After a buffet style dinner that usually included fillet, crocodile tail, impala and some local fish, we would all stumble back to our air conditioned rooms, log the footage of the day and then fall asleep.
Of course we had to deal with 100 degree+ heat in a black rock canyon and malarial mosquitoes, but the good far outweighed the bad.
During our stay the water steadily rose a total of 1 meter and we saw rapids change and surf waves come and go. On our final day of paddling the Zambezi Clay ran rapid 9 containing one of the biggest, unavoidable holes on the river. As he dropped in to the trough of the hole his
bow was violently kicked up into his face breaking his nose. I didn't even know what happened until I saw him laying on the rocks at the bottom with blood all over his face.
Jessie cleaned him up nicely and as we paddled to the take out I saw clay pull a couple big kickflips to show that it wasn't so bad.
We then packed up our bags and caught a flight to Uganda to paddle the White Nile River.
Clay now looked like he had been severely beaten in a fist fight with a crooked nose and two black eyes. We would point at Jessie anytime someone would ask what happened. The section of river that we kayaked is only a couple miles from the source of the Nile draining Lake Victoria. Everything about the area was different from Zambia, we were very close to the equator and all around the river was
thick jungle. The river was very open and braided similar to the Ottawa or Slave with many channels and options when paddling down stream. It was almost impossible to scout rapids due to the jungle and some channels were fully class 5 while others were mellow. We got hooked up with Nile River Explorers, a rafting company with a great camp spot located at the put in of the upper run. The five of us shared a cramped room with bunk beds and no mosquito nets. The rafting company cooked all of our m
eals and dealt with our shuttles.
Standing in the open air bar overlooking the Nile River, the bartender told me that he had malaria 30 times in the 5 years he had lived there. Moments later a raft guide
stumbled in and told us that he was presently sick with malaria.
That night after dinner some friends from another camp invited us to do a night surf on a big wave lit up by headlights from a truck. Clay and I meet up with Rusty Sage and Andrew Holcomb and surfed for several hours and had a great time. The next morning EJ didn't get out of bed and was showing the classic signs of Malaria. A very bad headache, hot and cold sweats and could even get out of bed. Jessie immediately treated him with malaria medicine and he slowly recovered the following 5 days not having enough strength to paddle the river. Two days following EJ's sickness, Steve Fisher was sicker than anyone I have ever seen. One morning we were paddling and filming and by that night Steve was rapped in sleeping bags shivering in 85 degree temp, pasty white and not responding. Neither EJ or Steve toke the preventative malarial drug for the reason that its about as bad for your body as getting malaria itself.
The rest of us paddled the river everyday and had a absolute blast. The river felt bigger than the Zambezi and had an amazing playspot in nearly every rapid. Between Jay, Clay, Rusty and Andrew I saw some amazing rides and aerial moves. The very last rapid on the upper section is located at the take out and is the longest and hardest of the day. I watched Andrew run the rapid and catch the corner of one of the wave holes throwing one of the biggest aerial blunts of the trip.
Getting out on the side of the rapids to film was more dangerous than running the rapids by far. Everywhere it was thick jungle crawling with pit vipers and poisonous spiders. The video boaters that work the river say they regularly see black mambas and cobras. I ran into one cobra in the water that was super aggressive and not at all afraid of me, I was glad not to see any on land.
After the Nile I jumped on the plane and flew back home just long enough to do laundry and repack my bags for southern Chile and the Futa. I met Jessie Stone in Puerto Montt and we caught a ride in an old 6 seater airplane through a bad storm to the tiny town of Chietan. After a short 6 hr overloaded bus ride, South American style, I met up with a slew of Canadians including Ken Whiting, Tyler Curtis, Chad Hitchins to do more filming. When I arrived the water was so high many people weren't paddling and one group had a flush drowning fatality in Terminator rapid. Our group packed a bus and headed for the drier eastern
side of the Andes in Argentina. We stayed a night in the resort town of Barraloche and had one of the best steak dinners of my life. The next day we ran a section of the manzo
and then camped in Esquel. This section of Argentina is very beautiful and well worth the trip for the steak alone.
Back on the Futa the weather turned sunny and the rain stopped. We paddled everyday and caught new playspots as the water slowly became lower. Ken is partners with Chad, Kevin Varrette, James Mcbeth and local land owner Louis Toro. We stayed at their beautiful camp along the Futa in the middle of a great stretch of whitewater and towering mountain peaks.
The boating was amazing but I must say that the highlight of the trip was climbing a local peak named the tres monjas (three nuns). As all fun adventures start, Paul Harwood, Laura Hopkins and I decided to do the climb at breakfa
st and by lunch time we had backpacks packed, sitting on the side of the road thumbing a ride to get closer to the peak. We climbed 3500 ft to a beautiful ledge and a windless and rainless night.
The next morning we woke and climbed through a very old high alpine forest, racing oncoming clouds. By the time we made it up the scree and onto the rocky peaks we were at the base of the clouds with a spectacular view of the Andes range from Argentina to the coast. We didn't completely summit but got as far as we could without ropes. After a 5200 ft decent to the river we sat on the edge of the futa and had a most amazing lunch of crackers, cheese and salami.
I am back in Oregon now editing videos,enjoying home life and patiently waiting for the wind to blow.
