Rio Cofanes Mission: Part Uno.

Charlie hangin' out in the first gorge.

Last year, a crew of 3 bro´s traveled to Northern Ecuador to explore a river near the Colombian border.  The Rio Cofanes runs south and east, converges with the Rio El Dorado, continues through the town of Lumbaqui, and eventually drains in to the Amazon River, in the eastern part of the country.  Until last year, this region had never been seen from the vantage point of a whitewater kayak.

Brian Snyder, Abe Herrera, and Brandon Gonski spent 2 nights and 3 days in the jungle, running the Cofanes and El Dorado in a first descent mission most kayakers would dream about. Boulder gardens, un-scoutable blind drops, walled-in gorges, lava canyons, big water class V, and incredible scenery. To quote Abe: ¨This is the best run in Ecuador!¨

Best run in Ecuador? Anyone who has paddled here knows that is a bold statement.  So, we decided to go see for ourselves.  Reluctantly, Jake woke me up at 6 a.m., and we headed north from Baeza to the town of Lumbaqui.  Meeting the other 3 boys, we bargained for nearly an hour, trying to find a truck to take us to the put-in village of  La Sofia.  This proved to be quite the task, but haggle-master Scotty Baker found one, and we continued north without paying ¨Gringo prices.¨

 La Sofia is in close proximity to the town of La Bonita.  Last year, the boys had to hike 7+ hours to Sofia.  Luckily for us, a 4x4 accessible road had been carved out, and we thought when we left Lumbaqui that we were headed straight to the put-in. We were mistaken. Somehow, lost in translation, Scotty had bargained a ride to La Bonita. We arrived, expecting to continue to Sofia, but instead were dropped off with our drivers family, who happened to own a hotel (how convenient!?). 

After talking to some locals, and eating an early dinner (eggs, rice, popcorn, french fries, avocado, and tomato), we haggled once again with a few drivers, and loaded in to a covered truck.  Fortunately, the truck bed had a nice thick layer of fresh fertilizer (cow shit) to protect our boats from any abuse.  The road to Sofia was rough, but the views were incredible.

Heading to La Sofia.

Beautiful view on the way to La Sofia.

Our driver stopped, just above a steep grade, about 4 km from town.  He refused to go any further.  What a surprise. As we were unloading our boats and gear, a man on a motorbike offered to meet us at the bottom of the hill, with a truck.  We didn´t want to pay another driver to drive us 5 mins to town, but it was near dark, and hauling our stuff that far was not appealing, so we agreed.

Unloading...almost there.

"First Impression" Jake Ament.

Walking to meet truck number 3.

Finally arriving in La Sofia, we were greeted by a dozen locals, one of which offered us a place to stay (he owned the truck that picked us up, so that ended up working out in our favor).  He and his wife owned a little tienda, where we drank agua dente (Ecuadorian moonshine), and were able to buy some peach wine (delicioso), cheesy poofs, and some more veggies for our trip. We all slept well upstairs, and were greeted in the morning with some delicious breakfast, coffee, and juice.  Not bad...

Sofia Accommodations.

After breakfast.

Put-in

24 hours, 1 bus, and 3 trucks later, we walked down to the Cofanes to find about 800 cfs in the riverbed.  We knew Don and Darcy, who had the 2nd descent late last year, had a similar water level, and we were excited to finally get on the water.

The first part of the run consisted of continuous, class IV boulder gardens, for about 3 miles.  Only a few rapids needed more water, and it was fun reading and running this section to warm us up.  We arrived at the first mini-gorge after about an hour, where the river channelized and gradient increased.  Charging in, we ran 4 rapids back to back, and paddled out of the gorge with smiles on our faces.  We all knew this was going to be a fun trip.

First Gorge.

Scotty B.

Some more boulder gardens, and we were at the mouth of the 2nd gorge.  Brian Snyder had told me about an un-scoutable drop they called ¨The Wardrobe,¨ which he had to run blind.  Jake hopped out, only to get a better view of a big horizon line, and water spraying up below it.  This was it.  Dano ran it first, and I followed, expecting to boof a vertical drop, but was surprised when I looked down to see a barrel of green water dropping left in to a huge hole! Fortunately, I had a super clean line, and eddied out to get some footage of this big drop.

 

Jake looking down in to the 2nd Gorge.

Dano coming in above "The Wardrobe"

Unscoutable: "The Wardrobe"

We continued through the gorge, running some super fun class IV drops, when the river took a hard left turn through a small rapid, and ended in a beautiful pool.  This would be Camp Numero Uno.  Unfortunately, Dano had re-injured his shoulder upstream, and the group thought it would be better to chill for the remainder of the day.  It turned out to be a perfect camp spot, with plenty of space to spread out, and plenty of dry drift wood for a fire.

Settin' up.

We set up camp, chilled out, had some tasty soup and chorizo for dinner, and went to bed early, excited for the remainder of the run.

Camp.

To be continued...
Joe