Don\'t drink the water --
paddle the hell out of it!
By Darin McQuoid

At the tail end of 2006, kayaker Heather Herbeck was asked to join a world-class—and all male--crew of paddlers as they tackled the world-class whitewater of Mexico’s Alceseca River. “The boys” included Ben Stookesbury, Eric Jackson, and Phil Boyer, (not to mention a writer and photographer from Men’s Journal), and Herbeck immediately found herself questioning whether she could hack it.

Starting with this entry, and again next Monday, Wetdawg will recount Herbeck’s first descents on this legendary stretch of whitewater. Through her trip journals, Herbeck will share the adventure and show us what it is like being the only girl at the party. In the process we’ll see how this intensely challenging trip changed her forever.

DAY ONE

I arrived in Mexico City at 9:00 a.m. Jesse, EJ, Thayer and Lucas (Men’s Journal Photographer) were expected to arrive at 6:00 p.m., so I figured I’d wait at the airport and people watch until they arrived. But by the time EJ finally showed up at 11 pm I was going on my 12th hour at the airport and insanity was setting in. Thankfully we quickly packed the rental van with our gear and luggage, strapped our kayaks on the roof praying that they would stay and ventured off into the dark for a five hour journey to Veracruz.

The next morning the whole crew met in the hotel lobby for introductions. When it was my turn to introduce myself, I felt a bunch of blank stares my way. Perhaps the guys were wondering how a female paddler got invited on a Men’s Journal shoot. And, more so, how would this woman keep up with the group on this river.

I was thinking we would take it easy the day we arrived, get settled and check out the town, but the next words out of Ben’s mouth were, “Let’s go do a warm-up run!” Our “Warm-up” run was the Roadside section of the Alseseca.

We put on the river around 12:00 p.m. The water was a little lower than when the group had run this section a couple days before. The put-in was a pool right above a 25 foot waterfall. At this flow, you needed to boof left to avoid pitoning a boulder ledge off the right side at the base of the falls, however you didn’t want to go too far left and hit the river left cliff wall. So, after watching a few paddlers go over, I hopped in my Rocker, paddled down the entrance to the waterfall, angled my boat right while driving left, took a hard left boofstroke and landed. “Bamm”, I boofed as flat as possible, sounding like a gun shot! I got a bunch of smiles from the crew. So far so good!

We then got to “S-turn”. This rapid consisted of a sloping vertical entrance, right angle bow, driving right. As you drove right, you hit a huge pillow on river left (this was a very narrow slide chute rapid - you can see this rapid in Burning Time with much, much more water), which bounced you quickly to a huge curler pillow on river right. Once past this part all you had to do is ride the chute down to the pool. After looking at this rapid for a while, I made up my mind to run it. “If you tip over, Heather, don’t bother rolling up,” I was told by the group. “Just hold on until you get to the pool below because it’s really shallow in there.”

I came down the slope with speed and hit the left pillow. However, I was leaning too far left that as it shot me right, I flipped. Now, of course I didn’t wait to roll up. I did what was instinctual to a paddler - I set up for a roll, swept my paddle and rolled up. I came out of the chute upright and with a lot of cheers from EJ and Ben (who thought I had styled it until I opened my big mouth that I flipped in the middle of it all).

Once we got back in our boats, I pulled into an eddy below the rapid, right beside Rafa, who looked at me and said, “I’ve never paddled with a woman who actually knows what she’s doing!” I replied back, “Rafa, I’m fooling you, I don’t know what I’m doing!” We both laughed.

The river continued with some good rapids. One of the next rapids looked to have a pretty bad hole at the bottom. “As long as you hit it straight and with speed, you should go right through.” I could have easily walked it, but Jesse encouraged me to give it a go. I came down the left side of the rapid, taking a right boof stroke over a center hole, continued paddling and straightening myself out and plunged through the hole at the bottom. I had thought I made it, but ended up turning sideways and not going anywhere from there. “Heather, move back, move back, keep going, move back.” I heard EJ yell. I took 5-6 right bladed backstrokes and worked my way out of the hole’s grasp. “Phew”!

It was getting dark and we finally reached our take-out. On a bridge 15 feet above us, Lucas, Jesse and Phil cheered our arrival. What a great “warm-up”. Fun, big drops, roadside . . . the best was yet to come, and so far I was holding my own with the boys.

DAY TWO

This section is the origin of the Alseseca and starts below a 200 foot waterfall. We hiked about two miles down to the river. As we got down there, Ben and Eric (who had done this section two years ago and again a couple days earlier) noticed the flow. It had been raining all night and morning and the river had risen significantly from the day before. “What do you think of the level?” Eric asked Ben. “It should be pretty full-on.” Ben replied with a squirmish smirk on his face. “I’m a little nervous to go, Ben!” I said. But my decision to go was made when Ben answered back, “Well, Heather, this is the hardest of the easiest whitewater we will be doing on this trip, so you decide!” I shut up and put my gear on.

We got into our boats and headed downstream. I tried to focus on each individual drop instead of the high water and all the big drops - this made me a lot more focused and less nervous. Less than a half-mile downstream, we came to our first rapid, which required either a river right boof into another six- foot vertical boof or enter river left with a slide into the six-foot boof at the bottom. I managed to get into an eddy that would allow me the only option of river left. EJ gave me the “go.” I started my slide descent, working my way right, into a boof stroke at the bottom. “Sweet, nailed the line.”

As we headed downstream, Ben gave us the signal to eddy out. As he went around the corner, EJ followed. A whistle blow was heard, so one-by-one, we went around the bend. We were at our mandatory portage. We needed to reach a one boat eddy on river left, so we could portage. The worse thing was that this eddy was surrounded by branches from a river-wide strainer above the entrance into the falls.

Ben got to shore as Eric, Nick, myself and EJ were all eddied out amongst the branches. My turn came, I wiggled my way out of the branches, got my ferry angle and ferried through the branches about a half-foot above the strainer. Darin was there on shore to grab my boat. We hiked our boats up about 150 feet and 400 feet downstream. It would take all of us to make this portage successful. Eric went down first, using a rope tied to a tree for support, he slid his way 120 feet down. Next, EJ, Nick and Darin went to position themselves to collect gear. Ben and I stayed up top to lower boats.

Our portage brought us to the top of a 40 or 50-foot-high waterfall, called “the Rib.” Two years earlier, Ben had run this drop at lower flows and hit a kicker rock, landing him sideways and spitting up blood. We spent some time scouting and Ben and Nick decided to fire it up. As we positioned ourselves for photos and video, fog and thick clouds rolled in, making it hard to see. Ben and Nick both styled the drop. Right below the “rib” was a 25-foot curved slide into a 20-foot domed waterfall.

Nick ran it first, corkscrewing a bit at the bottom and broke his paddle. I ran this drop after EJ, entered the slide river-left and it curled me center-right. As I approached the lip of the 20 footer, I tucked (you didn’t want to boof this one), landed and split my paddle. We ended up with two broken paddles and only one break-down. We could have played paper, rock, scissor for who would C1 down the rest of the river, but Nick was more comfortable C1ing than me, so he stepped up. We had 3/4 of the river left up to this point. “Thanks, Nick” I said. “Good luck, man!”

Soon after this slide was the “Pooper” rapid. I had been hearing about this rapid all morning. “The Pooper rapid is sick!” I’d hear. So, I had to ask how the rapid got its name. Ben replied, “The reason it’s called the Pooper is that you slide into this narrow chute, barely wide enough for a boat to go through. As you approach this chute you don’t think you’re going to fit until, bam! you get through the slot and explode out the bottom of the chute into a 20 foot waterfall.”

“You gonna run it?” Nick asked.

“I’ll wait and check out your lines before I commit,” I replied. So, Eric hit it up first. He slid down river left over some chunky rocks, which ended up pulling him off line a bit. He entered the “Pooper” slot with too much right angle and pitoned the wall. He bounced off the wall, and continued through the chute over the waterfall. I didn’t like attempt #1.

So, Darin hit it next. Now, up until this point, Darin seemed to be this quiet guy, very laid back and reserved. His line was down the middle, which would place you directly in the center of the chute. The thing about this line was that you would be shot through the chute so quick that your chance of boofing the waterfall below was fairly high.

Darin got buried in the center of the chute, came flying out, almost tipping over sideways, then shifted his weight just enough to stay upright. But the speed and current going over the waterfall hit Darin so hard that he pulled the first ever Air Screw over the waterfall - what a little show-off! (You can check out this footage in Hotel Charley coming this spring. . . it will definitely be a highlight.) The amazing thing is that he landed the air screw at the bottom of the waterfall . . . upright. Attempt #2 wasn’t a sell for me, either.

I watched Nick go next. He took Eric’s line, entering left and boofing into an angle that would get him through the “pooper” chute. He also pitoned, but came out upright. No one sold me on this drop, so I portaged it, along with Ben and EJ. What I did get from this drop was all lot of laughs and entertainment . . . thanks guys!

As we continued downstream with yet more ledges, we came around another corner with a horizon line and I got turned sideways and got stuck in the perfect side-surf, facing river-right. As I was sitting in this surf, bracing myself with my left paddle blade, hoping not to tip, Darin flew over me. Both of us thought he had cleared the hole, but he landed in the boils and was getting pulled back in with me. He swam right away to get out of my way.

His boat came up stern first between my paddle and my body. I let go of my paddle with one hand, pushed Darin’s boat out of my way, tipped, hip snapped back up and continued in my side surf. Next EJ and Nick flew over me. Finally, Nick approached me and told me to hold on to the bow of his boat as he back paddled me out of the hole. I grabbed onto his boat, but even though he was paddling hard to get me out, he was also being pulled into the hole. So, EJ scrambled up to shore, threw a rope to Nick and yelled, “Heather, hold on to Nick’s boat hard. I mean really hard.”

I let go of my paddle to hold on to Nick’s boat with all the strength that I had. EJ then started pulling Nick to shore and pulling me out of the hole. “You held a good side surf for two minutes,” Eric praised. “Way to hang in there.” We continued downstream, finishing this run with the 25-footer and the double drop from the day before.

As I lay in bed that evening, I got to thinking about a few things: What does it take to do an expedition like this? What does it take mentally, physically, logistically? I was about to find out. Day One and Two where typical paddling days: you put on, run a section of river that at least two or three people in your group had run before, take out and go home. From day three on, this trip changed my life as a person and a paddler. I’d like to share with you not only what our trip consisted of, but how--as a woman and the only female paddler on the trip--this expedition affected me, both mentally and physically.

DAY THREE

We got our wake-up call from Ben around 6:00 a.m. that morning - we got to sleep in a bit - collected our gear and headed to our “Breakfast of Champions” stop - a market/restaurant during the day and a strip club by night. Yes, for real. We laughed and joked about going to that strip club every morning, but they were the only place open!

This particular morning, there were three Mexicans left over from the festivities of the night before. One Mexican bought our table a bottle of beer as he came over to us, slurring his words and asking us questions. His friend on the other hand was totally passed out, with his head plastered to the table and no movement. Most of us passed up the beer, but EJ and Eric figured it would be polite to take one sip.

After breakfast, we headed out to Cascadia De Tomata (I asked Rafa what Tomata meant and he said “Jump”, so this might be called the “Jumping” waterfall). We figured with all the rain and the river high, that it would be wise to hit up this waterfall instead of exploring other sections of the river.

We hiked down to the waterfall and started scouting while Ben and Rafa went to check river levels with a local. They were gone for quite a while, so after scouting for what seemed like an eternity, we made ourselves comfortable on the rocks and chatted, while others fell asleep.

Eric Seymour measured this waterfall to be between 65 and 70 feet. It was about 50-60 feet wide with tons of water going over it on this particular day. I sat there staring at the waterfall, studying my line and rehearsing in my head what I was going to do once I went over the lip. The nervousness that I usually get before I run big drops wasn’t there this day. I felt very calm, focused. I hadn’t committed 100% to the drop yet, however deep down inside I really wanted it.

Rafa and I paddled over to river left and looked at the drop from the other side. “Rafa, tell me your line,” I said. (I like to verbally talk about the line, the timing of each stroke and the landing)

Rafa replied, “Okay, well I’m going directly left of the hump, take one more right stroke and go for the tuck.”

“Perfect, that’s exactly what I want to do.” I shouted. “Let’s give 'er!”

I continued rehearsing all the moves in my head, and then Ben gave us the signal to get going. He got in his boat, eddied out directly over the waterfall, peeled out and headed over. He landed in the center of the waterfall where the boils are the biggest, so he got worked in the boils a bit.

Hmmm, I thought, that didn’t look fun. I told myself that I’d watch Rafa go and, since his and my line and timing were exactly the same, I’d wait and see how well he came out. Rafa got in his boat, paddled over, tucked and made it! I decided that it was now or never!

I rehearsed what I needed to do for so long, that my confidence to come out of this and be successful was pretty high. I got in my boat and paddled to about 10 feet above the falls. I gave the media crew a victory fist and a pretty smile, took a deep breath and started to focus. I lined up, paddled, took a right stroke off of the lip, and started my tuck. I forced myself to keep my eyes open as I went into my tuck just to see what this whole experience looked like. I remember looking over and in a very relaxed, calm state, saying to myself, “Whoa!”

After taking a quick peek, I continued into my tuck, wrapped my arm around the bill of my helmet and closed my eyes for impact. “Clunk,” I rotated a bit forward and hit my paddle against my boat. My knees came out of the thigh braces which automatically pushed on the release bar of my skirt and sent me out of my boat. With my boat and paddle in hand, I swam over to Rafa on an outcropping below the falls. After getting myself situated, I sat down to watch Darin as he styled the drop. As we were helping Darin with his boat, Rafa yelled out “Heather, don’t sit there. . . look!”

“Too late Rafa, gross!” Right where I was sitting was a dead, plucked chicken. No wonder my seat was so soft! We laughed about it for a while. Nick was the last to go over and styled the drop as well.

“Didn’t think you would actually do the drop, Heather,” Rafa and Nick said. “Way to go!” We all exchanged high fives and big smiles.

The hardest part of this day was yet to come . . . the take-out. The rapid we took out above is the rapid in Burning Time where they are talking on walkie talkies about the drop. Ben and Rafa scouted this rapid for a long time and we all decided to take out. The take-out was pretty intense for me, almost more so than the waterfall.

We had to free climb slippery rock above a 50 foot waterfall for about 15 feet and then lift our entire body while stabilizing ourselves with our toes on a little rock outcropping and our fingers in little slots in the rock, up onto a ledge. Thankfully, Darin let me scramble up the back of his life vest onto the shelf. Once on this ledge, we pulled our boats up and made a chain, passing our gear all the way to the top of the cliff.

It was hard for me to sleep that night. I was a bit sore from the impact and my adrenaline level was still at an all-time high. As I laid there in bed I thought to myself, “Man, would I ever do that drop again? That was freakin’ huge!” The feeling I had looking down 70 feet into huge boils at the bottom is unbelievable. I can’t explain why I had the calmness I had. I remember thinking, above the falls, “Why am I not nervous and tense?” “Why am I sitting above a 70 foot waterfall, smiling and waving at all my friends across the river?”

I don’t think I can answer. All I do know is that, yes, after all the emotions came down from running the falls . . . I would do it again!

DAY FOUR

Today we put on below the Middle Alceseca, which the group made a first descent of earlier in the trip, before we arrived. We put in downstream of a 25-30 foot bridge, which EJ found to be a more exciting entrance into the river than walking the boat down to river level.

EJ seal launched with style - perfectly executed. We continued downstream for about one mile. Ben gave the team the sign to eddy out. We noticed the walls to form a canyon and the river disappear below a double-drop rapid with a pretty strong hydraulic at the top. A scouting mission was the next move, because according to the map, this was the steepest and most canyoned section of the river.

After the double drop rapid, the walls gorged-up pretty high and then disappeared downstream. We ran into a local banana grower and he told us that right as the creek disappeared there was a huge waterfall and that he could take us there. So, we took all of our gear off since we were told that it was an hour hike there and another hour back.

In the meantime, the banana grower gave us some bananas to recharge our energy level. He proceeded to tell us that his organic bananas took three months to mature, whereas the bananas we buy in the market are enhanced with hormones that allow them to mature in three days! Let me tell you, they were the best bananas I’ve ever had.

We hiked and hiked and hiked and finally reached the waterfall. We judged it to be about 90-100 feet tall. After looking at the falls for what seemed like hours, we decided to hike back up to the gear. Once we got back, Ben, Rafa and EJ decided upon running the gorge and taking out right before the waterfall. This would entail ascending 60 feet up to a bridge after their short 1/4 mile gorge run.

They got their gear on and the rest of us got in our positions for safety and photography. After waiting for quite a while, Eric Seymour came walking back our way and told us that the three decided the gorge was way too gnarly at the current flow, and they chose to not run it. So, we had a full day of scouting, measuring the length of river that we hit in a 10 hour period of time to be about 2 km . . . That’s what it’s all about! Oh, yeah, and those bananas!