Pray for Rain: The Tale of the Ocho Rios-Finding the Verde

Squeezing thorough the tight streets in yet another small Mexican town (photo by Boyd)

Day 5 The Rio Verde. The Rio Verde is hard to find. The Gringo’s Guide to Mexican Whitewater doesn’t do the logistics justice. It’s just a plain old clusterfuck trying to find this river. After four hours and lots of miss-turns we finally find what is the takeout Puerte del Salto “Entrance of the Waterfall”, a beautiful 35ish footer with a tricky entrance and a kicker spout that sets you on that perfect 45 degree entry angle. The only reason we know we have found the right spot is because we see Tom McEwan and the Liquid Adventures van stopping there. They are headed to run the falls then do downstream section but in order to run the second canyon of the Verde and get out before dark we decide to go upstream to find access which proves daunting to say the least. We finally find a suitable spot though it isn’t as it is described in the Gringo’s guide but a nice fella lets us in through some barb wire fencing and we walk down through some fields and find the river. After putting on we find some great class three drops that could have used at least 3-4 more inches of water. We get out at one of the bigger ones, which also could have used some more water, where you would have had a boof into the froth then paddled out under a big over hanging ledge. The boof lip looked anything but suitable at this level though so we walk it. From there it’s small class III and flat pools till we reach a spot where the basalt reaches clear across the river with a couple good drops separated by a big pool. Boyd fires up the first one and we all run the second. We had been on a constant vigil for what we had heard described as a BIG WATERFALL, two-thirds of the way into the run. As we approach one horizon line we think we have found it only to find it’s a run through narrow boat width basalt slots 10 feet high. Pretty cool but a little disconcerting as we still haven’t found this “BIG WATERFALL” and its getting late. Finally we reach a spot where it obvious the bottom drops out and there is Kim. We had made it through the gorge in around two hours and had not seen anything that didn’t go or at least wouldn’t go with more water. All we could conclude was that Puerte del Salto was the big one. We all begin to eye it and take a bit of time making up our minds on lines. So long in fact that by the time Boyd drops in to probe it’s getting near dark. He has a good line and makes it look easy. Adam is up next and has a sweet line as well but doesn’t quite get tucked enough and has his paddle pop him subsequently busting a tooth through his bottom lip. Drew and I are resigned to the fact that it’s getting dark and we still have to haul boats and bodies out of the area below the drop so we opt out. It pains me greatly but I hope we can make it back to the area soon. It just looked like so much fun.