RAPID DECENT –

first run down the Shuiluo River – CHINA

 Paralleling the border of Tibet and Burma, the Shuiluo carves a deep gorge
through a series of 16,000-foot mountains.
 The few hundred ethnic Tibetians who live nearby hunt wild goats and sheep,
grow wheat and pan the river for flakes of gold
 Once on the river our biggest concern is getting trapped in one of the many
canyons. If anyone gets badly injured, help will be out of the question.
 “It’s more water than I hoped for” says Joe Dangler, frowning at the deep blue
waters rushing by. He estimated the flow as 1,200 cubic feet per second –
20% more water than expected
 The stretch of the Shuiluo we’re running drops 3,000 feet before joining the
Yangtze, but we don’t know whether it descends gradually or in a series of
steep waterfalls
 It’s late afternoon by the time we paddle away from shore. Children chase us
along a trial beside the river, racing past white prayer flags on poles
 We are concerned by how slowly the river is dropping. It means there are big
falls ahead – somewhere
 We enter a deep gorge where the water picks up steam. As ebony granite
walls rise 200 feet on either side of us, I realize there’s no place to pull over
 Ahead the river disappears to the right into blackness. I can hear the roar of a
big, big drop. Just like that – in less than a minute – our worst fear has been
realized. We’re trapped in a canyon with no escape but downriver
 Grunting and groaning, we sink our paddles deep into the froth, trying
desperate to keep to the right. As we drop over the 10 foot waterfall, the front
of our raft gets sucked under, burying all 5 of us at once
 It feels as though somebody has dumped a swimming pool on top of our
heads. We keep paddling and pop out like a cork at the bottom of the rapid,
where we pull into a shallow alcove
 We are safe for now. As we push away however, we come upon another blind
turn 60 feet downriver. Joe climbs onto a rock above us for a look
 “No problem” Joe says. “Just one big drop.” His words ring hollow. I’ve seen
Joe in enough tough spots to know he isn’t telling us the whole story. He
gives me a tight smile and tugs on his helmet strap: “Paddle hard, but be
ready to throw your weight to the centre, if we drop off something big.”
 Rounding turn after turn, we run smack into 6-foot waves. Finally we spot a
rockslide on the right. Exhausted and cold, we haul our boats onto the rubble
 There isn’t a flat spot in sight. We unroll our sleeping bags onto sharp rocks.
Our mood is as dark as the moonless night.
 “Man, I’m lost,” Joe grumbles on day three, as he studies one of our maps, a
muddy photocopy of a 1948 Russian topography map. “If I’m right we should
hit a flat section soon where we can make up some time.”
 No such luck. As soon as we emerge from the steep gorge that just tried to
swallow us, we find ourselves facing a half mile of rock-choked canyon.
Boulders as big as mobile homes block the middle of the rivers, followed by
two waterfalls beyond, one tumbling 15 feet, the other 20.
 A few of us hike down past the lower falls and toss a couple of small logs into
the waves. The logs submerge instantly, disappear for 30 seconds, then shoot
back up, minus the bark, into the cauldron of white water
 It takes Joe only 10 minutes to decide that the stretch is unrunnable. Pushing
and pulling our boats along the rocky left shore of the river, we reach a 40-
foot waterfall where the river disappears into a narrow canyon – certain death
for anyone swept inside.
 That night we make camp less than half a mile from where we spent the night
before. None of us sleeps well.
 Sitting stiffly on the cold bank of the river as dawn breaks, I sip warmed-up
goat stew and watch a flock of starlings slowly rise into the sky, their wings
silvered by the mornings brightness.
 Pillowy clouds hover over the golden peaks as a single start of sunlight
spotlights the forested slopes
 We begin a 2-hour portage-from-hell around the falls, climbing boulders and
hacking through the brush along the shore. In the midst of our labors, we
discover a human body draped over a log crammed between 2 rocks. The
back of the man’s head was fractured, his shirt stripped away by the rushing
water. We soon find 2 more victims of the same fate
 We begin day 6 with a sense of euphoria – the sun is bright, the rapids are
runnable, and the canyon is starting to widen
 We run Class III and Iv rapids easily (VI being classed as unrunnable) under
a hot sun as the valley spread out on both sides. We spend out last night on
the river sleeping on sand brightened by the glimmer of gold flakes

ROARING THROUGH THE EARTH’S

DEEPEST CANYON
 Risking their lives, a team of kayakers and rafters ride an adrenaline high
down the seething fury of Peru’s Colca River
 In the gut of this impossibility deep canyon – the wall opposite me rises
vertically for more than 2 miles. Peru’s Colca River thunders so I cannot sleep
 I am bone tired. I think I agreed to run the Colca simply because I knew my
soul was rusting. Moments from a journey I made years back bubbled up to
buoy me through dark times.
 The nostril-singeing cold of an Andean night, the break-bone crests of white-
water rapid, the smoky musk of an Indian hut. Flexing against such
memories, my soul renewed itself. I came to believe that at times risk is the
price you pay to reach a place that can blast your sprit clean
 Only a handful of people have seen the heart of the Colca, and not all of them
have lived to tell about it
 Rising in the Southern Peruvian Andes and spilling southwest for 236 miles
before emptying into the Pacific, the river carves a gorge that, measured from
its lower rim, is 10,500 feet deep – more than twice as deep as the Grand
canyon
 I had glimpsed the Colca’s gates once from afar. Ocher rampants soared like
giant organ pipes straight up out of a trench so deep and black that it looked
like a wound in the skin of the world. For a slippery second I’d been
convinced I could follow that blackness into the earth’s very guts – into my
idea of a sacred place, a place beyond machines
 Duilio, high-spirited and tough, has already kayaked the Colca once. He
described it as: ripping him out of his boat and shook him so violently he
cannot escape the memory. He must return “para sacarse el clavo” as the
Peruvian expression has it: “to remove the nail”
 A black-chested eagle hovers at eye level, then banks and dives, its immense
shadow rippling across the quit work of farm terraces thousands of feet below
 The Colca drops some 3,000 feet over 50 miles. If any one mood dominates
the Colca, it is one of isolation, “a forgotten valley of Peru”
 We bed down in numbing cold, and in the morning, goofy from the sparse
oxygen, drive west beneath white-hooded peaks.
 About noon a dull explosion 12 miles east of us produces a long, black plume
from the volcano Sabancaya; it billows into tight clouds, then disperses to a
yellow pall that soon fills the horizon
 The sky is cloudless, the air as dry as chalk. I shoulder my pack and fall
behind long legged Andrzej, his parasol perched jauntily over one shoulder
 For 2 days we pursue a treacherous path down barren brown walls, smashing
toenails against boot tips. Corn, wheat and cane wave in a soft breeze, bright
red chillies dry in the sun
 Exhausted, we pitch camp in a pasture by the Colca. Twice in the night I bolt
awake, startled by the boom… boom… of falling boulders
 At dawn I plunge into the frigid river, shocking myself lucid. Ready for battle, I
help inflate our 2 rafts, then we hoist them up and conga-line into the Colca
 Behind rock and shadow, I relearn the magic that happens when you join a
river, when gray walls rise up and swallow the land you once knew, and
suddenly you’re committed
 The river has you, and if you shift gears and lose yourself just right, you get
fooled into thinking you’re sitting still and it’s the banks that are moving
 The Colca doesn’t allow much room for indulgence. A man swept into an
undercurrent can easily find himself pinned beneath a rock ceiling, drowning
and cut off from help. I am soaked and cold all day
 We make our first camp at the foot of the rapid, on a sandy white beach
blown bug free by a warm wind. Bats wheel in the twilight; a snow-white egret
wings urgently upstream
 Later, as I drift off to sleep, a fat toad thumps onto my chest in what I choose
to consider a spirit of welcome
 The gorge is undeniably beautiful, but its shattering beauty, chaotic and
volatile. Its tone is one of imminent destruction, a place in constant collapse.
Here a fallen knife-edged boulder sits embedded in a patch of sand like a dud
missile; there 6 tons of sandstone perch improbably atop a thin spire
 Soon I heard a low rumble. More accurately, I felt it. It vibrated up from the
river, through the raft’s rubber skin and into my bones, inspiring a sudden
urgency in my bladder
 We beached the boats and scrambled downstream along the banks, slipping
and slicing shins on the rocks, to find the entire river squeezed through one
massive chute
 It careered between house-size boulders, then dumped into a “hole”, a
savage vortex of churning water. “Have a nice day” jacek shouted at me
above the roar
 The only thing I remember clearly about running Gutter Rapid is that at some
point I had a part of somebody’s head in my mouth. Oh, we had picked out a
line of attack, of course
 That all flew out the door when our raft floor exploded. No one had seen the
razor-tipped rock just below the surface. I felt a tickling under my feet as the
raft hit the chute and shot over something hard; then there was a sound like a
rocket firing, and we went balisitic
 I do remember the sensation of being suspended right over the hole inches
from the howling white being that wanted to eat me alive. And then somehow
I was on top of Johnny and the river was on top of us
 Then we walloped something head on, and I was on my way out the front
end. But then suddenly the world decelerated and there we were, floating in
smooth calm water, laughing like hyenas
 Hours later my head still rumbles but only a swallow’s squeal pieces the
predawn peace of our second camp. Nearby shadows stir. Tod awakens to
find a sharp, fist-size rock about 5 feet from his bag, planted in a spot that last
night was only sand
 We roller-coastered along head-high waters and cruised into the pool below
as wet and as happy as ducks. We slap high 5’s.
 I find myself reveling in not so much the fire run as a kind of peace: The
discipline of running rapids forces my attention to the moment. The Colca’s
gurgle and gush, never absent, have become like an inner voice
 By seven o’clock the canyon is absolutely black. Last night I was asleep at
half-past, only to be jerked awake, as if by a spotlight shining on my face,
when the full moon rose over the southern rim. Bathed in silver, the canyon
was as bright as dawn
 The next day we went over the falls completely out of control and the raft hit
the hole and stuck, pounded into place by the full force of the river. It bucked
wildly and for a brief second stood me straight up.
 Then something sucked the legs out from under me. I struggled to keep my
balance but lost and went right over the side. As I went underwater it was like
one of those stomach-churning carnival rides, but with no guarantees it would
stop
 I was whirled and spun. I went limp. No use fighting it. I waited. And waited.
And I waited helpless while the river beat me at will. Then for no apparent
reason. Air!
 By the time we reach camp an hour later my teeth are chattering
uncontrollably. I sit sipping tea, finally warm enough to use a pen, and grateful
to be alive
 Tempers have been short and not improved by our rations. With each day this
landscape grows more aggressive: It jumps out at you. Every bend unveils a
towering view, with it the sensation of living rock launching itself skyward. It is
impossible not to think of the canyon as a being, impossible also to fathom its
intent
 Running the big rapids is like sex. Half the fun lies in the anticipation. Two-
thirds of the thrill comes with the approach. The remainder is only ecstacy –
or darkness.
 Beautiful and barren, Colca Canyon’s walls support little life. “All I could think
of when we started was getting out. At the end all I could think of was going
back.”
 In the end we ran those rapids in less than a minute. Frankly, it was a blur. I
can’t remember the drops, can’t remember much of anything save the brief
explosion of white as we spun sideways into the second chute and I felt
myself being launched
 Then I got yanked back in, and we burst through a wall of foam and into the
promised land
 I can no longer tell the sound of my own breath from the roar of the river. This
rogue canyon has pushed and prodded me until I understand eternal secrets:
Rock lives. Water lives. Earth lives
 If soon I die – so? In this moment I am fully alive, alive forever
 All is white. We glance off a boulder, twist, straighten out. We race through
white toward a long green tongue. I look up: far downriver I see walls pulling
back and sunlight touching water; I see safe passage home from this glorious,
wrecked place
 These days I ride not a careening raft but a rusting Sedan. Sometimes I find
that if I sit quietly, I can conjure an oddly comforting gush and roar; the voice
of the Colca, timeless and utterly wild