Another great story from online magazine WideWorld today about a trip of British kayakers who traveled to Peru this summer to run the rapids on the last unexplored tributary of the Amazon River.
Paddlers John ‘Spike’ Green, Pete Caterall and Adam Harmer all work at the National Whitewater Centre in Wales. They traveled to the Andes, where they were joined by a local guide named Paul Cripps. Paul lives in Cusco, and knows the region very well, and it was he who first discovered that the Rio Concevidayoc had yet to be fully navigated and explored. With that in mind, the team set out to make the first descent of that river.
According to the description by WideWorld, the Andean terrain through which the Concevidayoc runs is wild and inhospitable. The river's path runs through deep mountain gorges and is often covered under a dense jungle canopy. Add in a very steep gradient, which creates crazy whitewater rapids, and you have all the ingredients you need for a kayaking adventure. Judging from the rest of the story, an adventure is just what they received. Early on, the rapids were rated in the Class III-IV range, but quickly turned into IV-V and beyond. As if that wasn't enough, the rapids were nearly constant, and there were few places to take out, and get a survey of what was ahead.
All in all, it sounds like this was quite a trip, and it's not often that you get to explore completely new territory. This team had that chance, and it was as wild as you can imagine.
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