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August 13, 2005
Rio Chiguaza, Ecuador
The Rio Chiguaza (also known as Tuna Chiguaza) flows into the Rio Pastaza at Mama Ibelia's place; the bridge over the Rio Pastaza on the Tena - Macas road. It looked pretty attractive to paddle, and since we had such a wonderful base camp here, we tried to find out more about it.
Ibelia and Orlando, amongst others, told us that it disappears into a cave - quite intriguing, and tempting to explore. A Shuar named Paulito seemed to be quite knowledgeable about it and confirmed the stories about the cave.
The maps showed the river going through a narrow, but not very high gorge, with a moderate gradient. Flow was about 1200cfs, and the water quite clear. The road followed the river at a distance of about 2 miles. There seemed to be at least one trail crossing the river. Interestingly, this was one of the rivers were locals did not tell us that we would die if we tried to paddle it.
They also told us that nobody had ever paddled it, and that they have never seen kayaks here. Given that they live at the only possible take out for the river, this seemed to be reliable information. However, it turned out to be incorrect, though just barely -- it had been run exactly once, as I would find out much later.
This sounded like the type of adventure I love - a trip into an unknown, but most likely interesting and beautiful place. A chance to explore, with the excitement of not knowing what lies ahead, what we will see around the next bend.
We decided to give it a shot. Orlando, a very nice local who was doing some work for the government exploring development and tourism potential for the area, was eager to help us with the shuttle and dropped us off at the put it. Paulito came along to shows us how to get to the river. He was a very nice, soft spoken individual. Interestingly, he was taking care of a baby; quite unusual in this part of the world.
We put in at the Bridge to Huamboya, in early November. Information about water levels throughout the year was too contradictary to be useful.
The
river started out as a beautiful class II, with lots of waterfalls
coming in from both sides. After about two hours of paddling,
mostly class II but some class III,
we approached a very narrow gorge, much narrower than a map could show.
The water was not moving very fast, so it must have been very deep. 
From
here on, we proceeded extremely carefully and slowly -- noting possible
exit points that allowed climbing the canyon walls to get out, in case
we could not continue. Fortunately, there was never a point when we
could not have backtracked to a climb-out possibility. If we'd
had to climb out, we
probably would have had to leave the boats behind.The next half mile probably took another hour or so; we started to get nervous as it was getting late and we did not have overnight gear.
This
is also the reason why we did not take more pictures of this incredibly
beautiful canyon. There were some caves I would have loved to
explore - plenty of reasons to go back some day. Towards the end of the
gorge, there was one spot where all the water disappeared into a cave.
We found out later that you can actually paddle through the cave -- but
not knowing this at the time,
we decided to portage on the right.
Finally,
the gorge opened up, and just as we were about to decide to camp
without any gear, we saw a cable crossing the river. This meant that
there was a trail, and a way to get out. We left the boats behind, and
hiked out. We made it to the road just as it got dark, and took a bus
back to our base camp. It was quite surreal to be back in civilization
only a couple of hours after being in such an inaccessible place.
Just the facts
The Chiguaza is very seldomly paddled; first descent probably by Dan Dixon in 1999 or so.
Class II with one III at 1200cfs. Somewhat technical, some easy but important moves required.
Take out: Road from Tena to Macas - bridge over Pastaza and Chiguaza, at the confluence
Put in: Drive south from the put in, towards Macas. Turn right towards Huamboya. about 1h drive??
Base camp: At take out. Ask at the little restaurant on the peninsula between the rivers (run by Sra Ibelia).
Length: 3 hours?
Times in table below based on very slow exploratory run.
| Minute | Description |
|---|---|
| 0 | In, II, lots of falls |
| 60 | Pulley X, Falls |
| 90 | Rio Nahimibi joins from left, nice, steep, maybe runnable with more water, V |
| 120 | Enter gorge, marked by HUGE boulder in middle (run on right, fun to climb) Various potential portages, Cave, Seal launch necessary (10ft), watch for trees. |
| 270 | Exit gorge. River goes underground, little spill on right runnable, or portage on right |
| 300 | Cable crossing, trail to bus stop on right, 200m up 20 min walk. Bus stop 47km, little shelter/bus stop on other side. |
| 310 | Significant rapid, III on right, V on left |
| 320 | Gorge gets narrow again HUGE boulders, beautiful, cave to paddle in |
| 360 | Rio Chamuquima enters from right with a IV-V rapid Trail, pulley crossing. |
| 400 | Narrow again, 4 feet, huge boulders, but not difficult TREES |
| 420 | Takeout at confluence with Pastaza |
Please email if you run this -- would love to hear about it. And send warm greetings to Sra Ibelia.
Posted by rick at 09:00 PM | Comments (0)
Rio Rircay, Ecuador
Gustavo,
the coolest (and probably only) climber in Ecuador, showed us a couple
of rivers near his home town of Cuenca that he thought might be
interesting to paddle. One of them was the Rio Rircay, a creek that
flows through a few fantastic mini gorges. We set up our base in
Gustavo's house in Cuenca... an interesting place consisting of what
looks like modern ruins from the outside, a nice home on the inside,
and a climbing gym in Gustavo's room.A first reconaissance trip to the Rio Rircay confirmed that it would be worth a try. Maps showed a resonable gradient, but we could not see everything in the gorges, so it was clear that we would have to be careful.
Dan
and I set out to do it, with Gustavo driving the Jeep for the
shuttle. Paddling with Dan was, once again, an amazing experience. He
was relaxed, always in control, and seemed to always have an eye open
for possible dangerous situations; very important on a trip like this.
We put in right above a bridge over the first gorge. The first half hour or so was quite mellow, and the little gorges were fascinating.
Dan was paddling a Pirouette (a very old and long boat, very different form todays short boats), but that did not stop him from playing around... Amazing.
After
a while; the water became more interesting, and approached class IV. At
one point, right above an easy looking rapid, Dan pointed out that we
could not see around the corner and that there was no way to paddle
back. So I stayed above the committing rapid, and Dan paddled ahead to
check out what's beyond the bend. The idea was that if we can't go
further, he would let the boat go, I would through him a rope, and he
would scramble back along the canyon wall.Fortunately, it was all flatwater beyond the bend, so we simply continued paddling.
Notice
how high the water can get in this creek... Scary. Locals tell us that sometimes, the water is completely clear. It would be nice to paddle it like that; if it weren't for the location and the water color, this would be a classic kayaking run.
I'd definitely like to do it again.
Posted by rick at 08:46 PM | Comments (0)
August 02, 2005
Two weeks in Ontario
Canada seems a rather unusual destination for me, but I really wanted to visit Johanna and Matthias Wandel. Johanna's great Website is one if the reasons I started this one, and I ran into Matthias' Website so many times that I wanted to meet him. Amongst other things, he wrote a library for reading JPEG headers that I used years ago.
Staying
at Matthias' house was all about deja vus... This included voltmeters
on the kitchen counters (really, I usually keep one handy in the
kitchen) and the presence of imported German kleenex (I used to have
piles of them because they are really useful, and because they make
great padding when packing your suitcases with stuff that gives bored
FAA personnel something to talk about at the end of their long day of
checking people's luggage).His book collection contained many of the more obscure books I remember reading, and many I didn't know but need to read.
That's
me, pretending to play his famous home
made pipe organ.Staying at Johanna's place was great, too. She's even more fun and interesting in person than I expected from her Website.
The
two wonderful weekend trips Johanna and I did are documented
on
Johanna's Website, and her writing is better than mine, so here I
will
just post two of the funnier pictures
I took on the second
weekend, on the epic bear cub collision trip. 
This
one is probably only funny if
you grew up
in Germany in the 80s and realize that the area around the Wandels'
tourist camp is full of
German immigrants.
Posted by rick at 11:03 PM | Comments (0)