Mexico is one of my most favorite places in the world to paddle. I love the warm weather and water, the mexico food, cheap beer, great rapids and waterfalls, it just has everything.

Though most of the time I spend in the state of Vera Cruz. Though pretty much everywhere in Mexico has great whitewater, most well known would be Chiapas. Ben Stookesberry was one of the main pioneers for the area and most famously the Santa Domingo.

This trip was my first trip to the Santa Domingo, and the Lower Agua Azul, and actual my trip with the Adidas team. The whole trip was for a filming project called “Searching for the River Gods” which plays all over Europe, including in the McDonalds, how cool is that. I was so fired up to paddle in Chiapas, but also just to get to paddle with the likes of Olaf Obsommer, Jerad Meehan, Sam Sutton, Phillip, Matze Brushan, Matthieu Dumoulin, Jens Klat, and Thomas Marnics. It was awesome paddling with these guys, and learning how they put together a film project with cranes, and zip lines.

The trip started with a 4 crazy bus rides with 8 kayaks, kayakers, and a whole bunch of camera gear etc. We met up with one of my best friends and our little mexican guide, Rafael Ortiz. We started on the Agua Azul, doing the upper, then the lower, and then doing the Don Agua Azul running everything. After a couple days paddling and filming on the Agua Azul we packed up and headed to the famous Santa Domingo. After one scouting day, we headed in for the steepest river I have ever seen.  As a group we ran everything except ‘Angle Wings’ the first 60 footer being that it lands with a 10 foot pool before the next double stage 80 footer. Matze and Rafa ran the ‘Dome’ drop, (double stage 8o footer) though after a couple interesting lines, I decided to walk like a champ. The steepness continues with another double stage 60 footer into and double stage 50 footer. Finishing with a strong and still steep run out.

Though the kayaking wasn’t the whole adventure from this trip. In all it was a crazy trip, with a couple first descents, including the top 70 ft falls on the Lower Agua Azul and the last big drop on the Santa Domingo. We broke 4 paddles through out the trip and had several injuries though luckily non too serious. We also had one sketchy line, where Phillip was kicked left into a sieve/crack and came out with only a couple scratches. We had the craziest most unreliable driver for the entire trip. Then we met the rebel Zapatistas wearing balaclavas and wielding machetes. We filmed from the governor’s helicopter for four days, which was sweet. Though we also had to have an emergency landing in the middle of a soccer game in nowhere Mexico because of thunder storms. We spent the night and flew back at sunrise the next day. Though I think I can speak for the whole group saying that everyone had a blast, and it was a sick trip.

Check out some photos from our two week trip.

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