Mary on the Upper Mis
Mary, showing the boys how to properly run this IV+ drop. Phil, Steve, and I all blew our lines (we nicknamed ourselves dumb, dumber, and dumbest). Mary cruised it and showed all the boys up.
Andy: Today we went even higher on the Upper Mis. We put-in at the end of the road, the highest possible put-in, with Wendy meeting us about an hour down stream. After dragging our boats through 1/2 mile of wet, muddy cow shit, we got to the run and proceeded to thoroughly wash the bottom of our boats.
This was a wild IV/IV+ run, different than anything I've ever boated. Very low water (<200 cfs), very steep (>125 fpm), and very tight lines. Steve, Mary, and I opted to portage one class V- rapid that Phil ran. As he dropped into the rapid, he got caught in a hole and his eyes got very big (nasty consequences below). We all heard him utter the f-word as he instinctively worked himself out of the hole. Clearly an exciting rapid when your guide uses the f-word! After Phil's excellent demonstration, Steve, Mary, and I patted ourselves on the back for portaging this rapid.
After our run, we drove the 3 hours from Tena back to Borja. At least, the drive SHOULD have been 3 hours. It ended up taking us 6 hours, and what transpired is pretty hard to explain. First, a section of the dirt road had slid, so cars were backed up for 1/2 mile in either direction. To complicate matters, drivers on both sides had tried to pass the blockage by driving on the wrong side of the road.... so there were TWO lines of cars facing each other in both directions - an impossible situation to get out of! It was utter road chaos - an Ecuadorian stand off. Nobody could get through in either direction, including the heavy equipment. We just turned the engine off and waited for it to unwind itself - very, very slowly. In the U.S., this situation surely would have created a road-rage event involving lots of yelling, pointing, and some colt-45s. In Ecuador, nobody thought it was strange - just a regular occurrence.
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Mary on the Upper Mis
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Mary, showing the boys how to properly run this IV+ drop. Phil, Steve, and I all blew our lines (we nicknamed ourselves dumb, dumber, and dumbest). Mary cruised it and showed all the boys up.
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