Portage

From Niftytricks

The definition - A portage refers to anytime you walk around a section of a river or a creek. This is typically because the section of water is unrunable, either technically, due to you or your partners skill, or for other factors (running out of light, fatigue...). You are never a chicken for portaging. Playing it smart keeps you health and able to tell your story afterwards.

Here is a little story about an epic portage Tyler Bradt made in Mexico.

The Story - We had beta: two waterfalls the first one with a ‘creative’ portage, the second completely unrunable with a deceiving entrance; and the exploration started. The trip was planned for two days and we could have stayed at least double that time. We were prepared with climbing necessities, static rope, food, water, camping equipment, and an array of throw bags as we set off on the ‘Tis Sholo’; a steep Mexican creek.

Like expected we immediately ran into the first waterfall and a predicament immediately unveiled itself before the group; the waterfall was nearly unscoutable. We set a belay system to the lip of the drop at which point we could squirm up the slippery rocks to scout the drop.

Seth Warren was the first one to the lip and came back immediately optimistic. “No worries boys- right down the middle.”

Matt Wilson and I were not quite prepared to huck ourselves into oblivion and opted to scout the drop ourselves before running it. I was the last one to drag myself out of the river on belay and cling to the slippery slope as I stared sixty feet down a perfect waterfall.

View from above.

The waterfall offered two problems. One was an undercut on the right making the waterfall unrunable with out safety, which created another problem: we couldn’t readily set safety. The second was that due to the geography of the land we could not see where the water pushing left ended up.

Once back with the group I voiced my opinion. “I don’t feel comfortable running this waterfall without safety; however, if we can set up safety she is good to go!” Matt Wilson who had previously sustained an elbow injury had a different opinion, “I am portaging.” With only three more hours of daylight we began the portage. This would not be the classic throw the ol’ boat on the shoulder and trot down to the bottom of the waterfall; that much was evident.

We formulated a quick plan of setting up an anchor then moving the boats and people to that anchor before repelling down the cliff, next to the waterfall, to the bottom. A plan easily summed up in one sentence would not prove to be as easy.

Seth went first to set the anchor and after twenty minutes reappeared at the lip of the drop. I went down to join him and help move the boats to the anchor. The geography of the land was as unforgiving as I had seen, with the rocks moist slippery and pitched on a 60 degree slope. The vegetation that existed grew directly on top of the rocks after years manifesting itself in the perfect growing conditions of the southern Mexican jungle; this meant horrible instability. I shifted down the rope set by Seth and immediately clipped into the anchor. I was relieved to be in a secure location after a nerve-racking ten-foot traverse.

At that moment the anchor I was clipped into gave a heart stopping snap-crack-pop and shifted an inch down the slope. Hardly an anchor I thought. Taking this new info into consideration and not wanting to go plummeting into caldron of boiling water below us, we managed to carefully move the boats to the other anchor, set previously, due to a lack of anything better.

Finally, we had the entire team grouped together on the slope, with the boats, and no way to finish our descent and repel down and no way back up to where we had started. We were stuck and the daylight was rapidly diminishing in the deep gorge we were in.

I am a far fetched climber at best and with our options down to zero I presented an option. “I am volunteering to jump boys, once I am down there I can swim to the far shore where you can see me and I can set safety.” A couple sets of ears perked at this mention and the courageous plan was formulated. I would jump.

Standing as close to the edge of the cliff as I could a looked down into the bubbling and boiling cauldron far below. I knew I could clear the rocks and make it to the water. I knew the water was deep. However, I knew I didn’t know where the water underneath the falls, that was pushing rapidly left, ended up. Was it an undercut? A cave? A beautiful big pool?

I looked up at the boys. “I feel comfortable about this,” I said truthfully. I would chance my survival skills in the river over my survival skills on a cliff any day. After a second to gather myself I hucked myself off the edge of the cliff. The free fall took much longer than I expected. After what felt like forever the rocks came protruding into my comfort zone very quickly. I hit the water and went deep into the aeration. Before my body stopped moving downward into the water I was swimming like a fish for the pool I knew was in front of me.

The water's surface was of little use me; I needed to move horizontally not vertically. My buoyancy eventually brought me to the surface and I gave a glance over my shoulder; bad news. It was a cave that the water was pushing into. My swimming efforts now doubled as I swam for some place safe. I kept going hard, without looking over my shoulder again. The water was pushing hard but after all my years of kayaking I am a decent swimmer. When I finally got to shore I saw that I made it just out of the cave and onto very slippery rock. I pulled myself out of the water and quickly gave a single burst from my whistle to let the boys stuck on the cliff know I made it.

My gaze panned back over to the cave. Luckily due to the low water in the river the cave was not an underwater water cave and at the moment did not present a life-threatening situation. I gathered my nerves for a moment, dropped any atheist thoughts I might have had before, and swam to the shore where the group could get a visual on me.

As the daylight diminished into the night we found ourselves at the base of the waterfall in a cave twenty feet above the water. We fell asleep that night the roar of the waterfall pounding right next to us reminding us of its intense power.

Lesson Learned: You never know what to expect when you are out on the river and you should always expect the worst. Our group now carries a drill and bolt system as to be able to set a safe and sturdy anchor in any situation we might find ourselves in.

You should also be willing to call it in if someone isn't a full 100% about the drop or run.

-Tyler