Chorro Run in Costa Rica

The last river of our Costa Rica trip was a narrow, steep section of the Naranjo called the Chorro section. I was concerned about Eric Renz and Carmen Cefaretti’s ability to do this run, so we hired a guide to take them down the river in a Minime, a small raft with one thwart and can hold up to 4 people, but is ideal for a small creek for a guide to take tow people. Eric and Carmen were in the Minime with a guide named Philipe. Clif Bobinski and Michele Weigold shredded and Kristy Leduc and I shredded. What a run!  This turned out to be the best and most challenging run.  Kristy and I felt pretty confident though we hadn’t paddled together.  That is until we took off in the lead and immediately got stuck on the first rock.  However after that we did great.  We stopped for a description from Philipe of the second rapid called Stairway to the Dragon.  It was a blind quick right turn, we took Philipe’s word for it and went after him, while Clif went for a quick scout.  Next was the Dragon’s Head where we had to move to the right of the huge undercut rock (the Dragon’s Head).  We stopped to scout the first real big one, Dragon’s Tail.  After slipping by a log at the top we had to try to get left of 3 knarly rocks that blocked the chute.  Even if you got left, you still jammed between the tallest knarly rock and a rock on the left, but you could wallow through from here.  The raft wallowed as Eric almost went flying out of the boat, but he did not swim.  Kristy and I got stuck by the log, but had a pretty clean line wallowing past the knarly.  Clif and Michele had a smooth line past the log but then went sideways towards the tall knarly.  It turned out to be more forgiving than it looked and they wallowed over it.  Next was a steep vertical drop Philipe ran right and Eric and Carmen swum as the raft stopped dead at the base of the drop.  This unnamed rapid we called Carmage (get it, Carmen/carnage).  The shredders went through clean by us all leaning way back as we went over the drop.  Next was the biggest rapid, Chorro. The walls were vertical here, so there was no scouting.  Philipe just said “I’m going to portage on the right, because I’d probably flip in the chute on the left but you shredders should run it”.  So off we went into the largest rapid, totally blind, taking Philipe’s word (even when he wouldn’t run it himself).  The first drop was steep (about 8 feet) and boat-width wide.  The hole at the bottom of the drop kept Kristy and I for about 15 seconds until we finally pulled out, then we headed left for the second, wildest, steepest drop of the run (probably a good 10 feet).  It was angled and the rock on the right jutted out so I had to lean into Kristy to keep from getting hit.  We went through this drop pretty smooth.  After the big drop was 200 yards of whitewater, as the whole river narrowed by vertical walls to about 12 feet wide.  At the end of this the river turned and Kristy and I sat in the pool, unable to see anything upstream due to the vertical walls.  Clif and Michele came through OK and reported that they didn’t get surfed in the first drop, but almost flipped in the big one.  Now we waited for the minime which was putting in above the big drop after their first-drop portage.  First a paddle came floating through, then nothing for a while.  Then minutes later the raft came through.  They had flipped in the big drop, but recovered and then ran the last narrows.

Next were two nice Class IV drops, which Philipe said “not much” but they were pretty good.  Then we stopped above a rapid called Kiss the Rock.  All we could see was a narrow slot between two rocks at the top of about a seven foot falls.  Philipe said go ahead just go for it, so Kristy and I went.  At the base of the drop were two rocks one on each side making it a super fine line to squeeze through.  I had to stand up straight in the raft to keep it down and straight through the slot, but we came through smooth.  Clif and Michele were next, the boat dropped forward, then stood back almost vertical, rolling both passengers out the back.  Next came the minime which rolled into their second flip of the run.  Philipe said it’s about a 50/50 chance of flipping at this one.

After Kiss the Rock was a Class III called False Chorro, a smaller version of the big one upstream, and then the last big one was Asses and Elbows.  Kristy and I were undecided as we followed Philipe going left but thought right looked cleaner and by the time we decided we were end to end stuck in the right channel.  As we had our momentary stuck we saw the minime do their third and final flip of the day in a steep drop near the bottom.  We got unstuck pretty quick then passed Eric below the drop they flipped in, but above one more drop.  Eric quickly handed us his paddle as we passed by so he could swim the last drop without the paddle.  Carmen, Philipe and the minime already swam the drop.  Then as Clif went by Eric grabbed onto their boat and almost caused them to swim, so he let go and swam over the final drop.  The final rapids were nice Class III’s called the Three Stooges.