The Journey Begins...

Ok…the first trip report from Colombia! I’ll start by giving you some background on my new paddling partner, JC. JC is from England and moved here about a month before I did. I was emailing a Colombian kayaker named Mauricio (http://www.oregonkayaking.net/mauricio_home/ma_home.html) a few months ago and was desperately trying to find a way to ship my boats down to Colombia. He suggested I contact JC, a Brit who had just moved to Bogotá. That’s the short of it…

JC and I did a little research and found an area about an hour and a half north of where we live called the Rio Negro. The commercially rafted section is about 4 miles of class III-IV depending on the rainy season. The gorge section is only run able in the dry seasons and is a class IV-V run that is much like the Upper Yough…albeit a little more narrow.

A few weeks ago, we set out and ran the commercially rafted section and enjoyed the scenery, but the water was so low it was 4 miles of class II. After ordering my new Burn, this past weekend we decided to explore the gorge section. The gorge has only been run by a handful of kayakers, so this trip was going to be interesting.

The pic above is of myself, JC and our host, Paola. She owns a small rafting company and also represented Colombia in the Greece Olympics in the slalom. She didn’t join us that day in the gorge. She said that she has only run it in a raft and was a little hesitant to do so in a kayak. Hearing that we were even more interested in checking the canyon out for ourselves.

Our shuttle...

Paola followed us to the entrance to the canyon and bid us farewell and good luck. She warned us of the class V rapid, “La Bomba” and told us that we should take the right line. The canyon section is about 4 miles long and consists of about 10 rapids. The first rapid was one of the 3 biggest. The next pic is the approach, and the second is the main 10-12 foot drop. FUN rapid.

The second rapid approached quickly after the first, and was quite impressive. The left line is an S-turn that is fairly straightforward and the right line is a 10-foot drop. I ran the drop both days, got knocked off line by and FU rock on Sunday, and almost got pinned against a wall. I wish I had a better pic of it, but I forgot to take one while scouting.

This is just below the second rapid…a very narrow section of brief flat water, followed by a class III boulder garden...beautiful...















This next one was a lot like powerful popper on the UY…except about twice as powerful…both days it backendered both of us. You can’t see the chute, but it’s the line on the left of the pic. The RL line that empties into a cave looked really fun, but it had a strainer above it.











The next pic is my favorite rapid. It’s just above “La Bomba” and is a Class IV+, 12-foot drop, with a ramp rock that shoots you forward after your initial boof. This is the RR side that wasn't runnable at this level…


And this is the RL side with the drop...
















Here’s JC running the RL line…he takes the pics next trip…
















Oh, by the way…here’s a pic of something we found while scouting this rapid…looks to be a human femur. Apparently years ago the rebles would kill people upstream and dump the bodies in the river.


Unfortunately, my camera died the first day just before “La Bomba”, and the second day, we decided to take out above it, due to the fact that it was unrunnable. With another half a foot of water, the RR line would have been open, but without it, the whole of the river slammed into a left wall of the gorge with only a tiny line off to the right side. We looked at it for about a half hour and decided a class VI portage was better than an almost sure pin. The portage was BRUTAL…about 80 feet up the canyon walls using ropes and pulleys.

This was the final part of it…

Following the gorge, the river continues about another 3 miles of class II-III to the village of Utica. We did this section the fist day, but decided to bypass on the second. I asked our driver if the village was safe…”mas o menos” was his reply (more or less). My follow up question of “are there any rebels in the village” was met with a little less certainty…SO…that’s the last time we’ll take the whole section.

The 3-mile hike back to town over an old railroad track was pretty cool…minus the allergic reaction to something that bit me and the 2 days of bed rest following ingesting something in the water. I thought I would have been pretty immune to most things in the water being the Potomac is my home river…

Well, what did we learn after my first jungle-kayak expedition? I need to buy more static line, a machete, carry penicillin, and buy a back yak for those walks out of the canyon!

Stay-tuned for the next report from the rainy season…we’re going to hit about 2-3 rarely run creeks!

C