Met up with Ricardo Alzamora in Mindo where we kayaked the Mindo and Upper Blanco together before heading to do a second descent of the Rio Pachijal, which Ricky did first descent of a few years back and got benighted on. Pic above shows Ricky and Maria Clara with their daughter Isabella. :-)
The walk in the the Pachijal goes through some serrious mud as you can see in this picture.After a while a muddy mule trail takes off, eventually, after more than an hour descending steeply through the jungle towards the river.
On the way down we had to make way for mules ascending with timber that is being extracted from these steep slopes.
After a short paddle on class3-4 we had to make the epic portage round a series of waterfalls and siphons. The portage is on RHS looking upstream in the view above. It took us an hour and half to get back into the river. The walk in and this portage took a lot out of me in the heat. A long succession of very fine class 4 and easy 5 rapids, with one short awkwartd portage over a blockage, led to a section where the gradient eased and the river became class 2 and 3. Made it to Pachijhal in about 6 hours overall. A really adventurous and rugged trip.
1 comment:
where do you put in to do this section of the pachijal? If you could send me cordinates or diresctions or some one i can talk to please send it! thanks
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