Mexico Whitewater Part 1

Photos

By Brad Sutton

The final segment of this years epic release of Hotel Charley: River
of Doubt was on in Mexico in the region of Chiapas was with Ben
Stookesberry, Rafa Ortiz, Josh Bechtel, Jon Burrill, and Derek
Beitler. The day I arrived to Mexico City I met up with Rafa and we
took a 12 hour bus ride to Tuxtla and then another 4 hour shuttle
drive in a van with a tourism driver named Antonio. We met the rest
of the group in a hotel where we had a plan to go to the Rio Santo
Domigo and paddle as much runnable whitewater as possible. The group
ran a few tight little rapids when we finally arrived above the
notorious Angel’s Wings waterfall, the first of four large waterfalls
in the upper gorge. After a rappel around the first big one, Josh
fired up the second drop without incident. Rafa then fired it up, and
despite coming in a bit crossed up, grabbed a beautiful stroke about
fifty feet in to line it up at the bottom. The rest of the group
opted for the portage. The next big one Ben had ran before and went
first with a sweet line stomping his landing. Josh and Rafa followed
suit although Bechtel ended up snapping the first paddle of the trip
but was fine. This brought us to yet another monster drop where
there was multiple lines to run. I ran a drop that was clean but got
yanked into the wall at the base, my right hand slapping the rock
wall. The rest of the group had clean lines which brought us to the
bottom of the spectacular upper gorge.

The rest of the day went well and we all just wanted to have clean
lines with out any injuries this is where day 2 and 3 came into play
with me nursing my hand and the boys firing it up and running the shit
at Las Nubes and Chanolik. Las Nubes saw Ben and Josh hike in for 45
minutes running some sweet lines while I stayed back and rested my
hand. Chanolik was a nice park and huck where Rafa, Derek and Josh ran
some interesting lines. Rafa had a bit of a hit on one of the last
drops and hurt his back a bit, and the rest ran sweet lines and had a
great time. Day 4 had the entire crew except me shooting photos on
channel one at Agua Azul. The very first rapid was extremely manky
and had a tight landing at the base. Josh, Jon and Ben all had sweet
lines and came out unscathed, Derek had a nice line but ended up
swimming out and Rafa also had almost the same line as the rest of the
boys but with the increased hard landings over multiple days his back
gave out and started to have muscle spasms and we had to put Rafa on a
back board and walk him out and send him home to get looked at. After
a day of rest and checking out the ruins of Pelenque, I was ready to
fire it up again stay tuned for Part 2.

Brad

Photos by: Derek Beitler and Josh Bechtel