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The Rio
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The Rio
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 Rio Huallabamba |
Life was perfect. We were floating through this magnificent chasm. The right side rose 1,000 ft or more; dark, sheer and polished smooth. The left side was like some gigantic piece of modern art: sculpted for eons into huge flutes that meshed with the jungle 60 feet above the river. The river's 6,000 cfs disappeared beyond the horizon line ahead. It seemed a pretty standard rapid now that the river has become pool-drop.
A few days ago John was sure the fun was over. "Rumble Through the Jungle" was a rapid that had gone on for miles. When it finally mellowed, John stated categorically, "That's the end of the whitewater." We had been teasing him ever since. We tease John, "Is this the last rapid?" As John got out to take a look he gave the same reply he'd given for three days. "Okay, this has turned out to be one of the best rivers we've ever run. " John yelled, "No problem. There's two holes. They're offset. Just head right."
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I ask, "Any trees, anything to worry about?" We had seen our share of trees in the river. After all, we are in the rain forest. The day before there had been a well hidden tree that could have been a death trap. But I had the luck of a full bladder and had spotted it downstream when I got out to pee. We almost hadn't stopped in time so now I'm extra cautious.
"No, no problem, just head right. But it's big!" John would have said something if there was any doubt so off I went. As I dropped into the seam, John raised his fist in salute and yelled, "All right Franz, that's the line." So Kurt followed right behind me.
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John was right, it was big! I'd always liked the feeling of big waves crashing down on top of me. I just get a charge out of it. But the whole rapid lasted only about 10 seconds and then I'm sitting in an eddy at the bottom getting ready for that ever elusive perfect photo.
Kurt drifted up, "My boat's full of water, I'm going to find a place to empty it, okay?" "Sure, we'll be there in a minute. I just want to get a couple of shots of John."
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 Kurt Casey |
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So here I am, sitting in a calm eddy 100 ft below the rapid and looking upstream through my viewfinder. And there's John, floating toward the river-wide hole at the top. He drops in, poof, he's out of sight, "Damn, I missed that shot". Poof, he pops through, floating high. I remember thinking, "Get ready, get a shot of him when he bursts through the crashing wave at the bottom. That's the perfect photo."
I watch him slide behind the crashing wave, "Get ready, any second now he'll burst through. Don't miss that shot." One second. Two seconds. John hasn't reappeared. He should have appeared by now. A tinge of anxiety. I figure I must have missed him while looking through the camera. I pull the camera down. There's the whole river. No sign of John. Three seconds. The tinge deepens. "Calm down, he's probably just surfing," I say to myself. Four. Five. Six seconds. The adrenaline is starting to surge. This is not normal. My mind is racing, "Was there a hidden eddy up there?" I don't remember one and that increases the anxiety. I suppose there's an explanation but perceive something is wrong. "Where could he be?" Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten seconds. The adrenaline is pumping freely. "Something is not right" 15 seconds. I yell for Kurt. I yell louder. I whistle. I yell. Nothing, he's out of earshot. 20 seconds. All I can do is wait. So I wait. Either his gear will start floating by followed by him swimming or he'll pop through intact with that ear-to-ear grin of his, laughing at the wild ride. Minutes pass. I'm worried sick. The longer I wait the more convinced I become that a catastrophe is unfolding and I'm powerless to interfere. I have to just wait. If it's even possible to scale the cliff back to where John disappeared will take a long time and all my skill. Once I'm out of my boat I won't be able to help quickly. So I wait. And my insides churn.
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 John's Rapid |
After a lifetime, I concede that John is not going to come floating by. I paddle across the river, wedge my boat in the cliff and begin to climb. It takes about 15 minutes to get there. No sign of John. No sign of any gear. No bright colors showing under the water.
There are trees in the water but none seem to be in a position to cause a problem. I search and study the rapid. Back and forth. It's only 150 ft from top to bottom. It's just like John said, "No problem, but it's big." I just cannot fathom how anyone could just disappear in the middle of this benign looking place.
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I must have just missed him. He must have passed by somehow. The only other choice is the unthinkable. I finally remember Kurt, He must be going crazy by now. There was nothing more I could do here, it was time to go find Kurt. I leave a memento, say a few words to John and head back to my boat.
I don't even remember climbing back to my boat. My body went through the motions while my mind struggling to comprehend what had happened. Before I know it, I'm floating in the river looking for Kurt. I'm hoping he didn't have to go too far to empty his boat. I don't think I can handle a long search. Finally, there's Kurt just ahead on the rocks and giving me a what's up sign. It's clear he's worried. I'm so glad he's not giving me the "what-the-hell-have-you-been-doing-for-the-last-hour" look. I'm sure I look sick. I know I feel sick. My insides are churning, still, and it's now been hours. As I reach Kurt I'm pleading to myself, "Please, please, let me be wrong. Let John be hanging out here with Kurt." I just want to hear John scold me for not seeing him go by. I don't want to be thinking the unthinkable. "Kurt, is John with you?" I finally ask. "No." That's it, I can't escape it any longer. All the wishing, all the praying, all the fantasizing about Close Encounters of the Third Kind, all of that was just avoidance. All the excuses, all the maybes are being extinguished as logic and reality presses forward. I'm thinking, "maybe, maybe, maybe, may, ma, m..." "Then he's dead." There, I said it.
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 [Below John's Rapid] |
My brain is muck but there's enough energy to reflect, "Christ, that's cold. Am I that unfeeling? Is that the best I can do? Couldn't I sugar-coat it even a little? Couldn't I give him some hope? I knew I was going to have to tell him. I feel so pathetic. I wanted to say something eloquent but it just didn't happen."
It's clear Kurt was fearing this. He hoped he was wrong, but he knew. "What! What do you mean?" "He just disappeared. I was watching him through the view finder and he just... disappeared." "So where is he now?"
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"He's gone, I mean he's just GONE! No boat, no paddle, nothing, nada. There's no sign of anything. It's like he just got beamed up by aliens."
God how I want to believe that. Even now we just keep waiting for John to walk into camp with that radiant smile of his and asking, "Where the hell have you guys been?"
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"What do you want to do?" Kurt asked.
We can't stay here. There's no place to camp here even if we wanted to. I stammer out something like, "I just want to get out of here. I just want to know we'll get through." We floated until we came to the confluence with the Rio Jelache. Maybe all of 3 km from the accident. From our calculations and sketchy information we had always thought of the Rio Jelache as the end of the whitewater or close to it. So when Kurt asked, "Do you want to camp here?" I suggested we take a look around the next corner 100 meters below just to reassure myself we were home free.
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 [Below the Rio Jelache] |
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As we floated toward the corner we talked about the irony of John dying in what we believed was virtually the last rapid of the trip. As we came to the corner we couldn't believe it. There wasn't a pool of blissful flat water. The river was squeezed between giant cliffs as it dropped into an impassable cauldron of boulders and trees. As we glanced about for a by pass our first thoughts were, "This is it. This is the impossible portage we've feared. We may never get out of here alive."
That was a few hours ago. We're not done for yet. We have 10 days of food left. But tomorrow is going to be a long day. I've just got to get some sleep. Finally I surrender. "Kurt, Kurt, where's the Valium?" |
 [Finding The Big Class VI] |
