March 9, 2008

By Ben Stookesberry

Subject: A new freefall benchmark

Hey EJ, I can´t take the title away from Tyler Bradt yet but there is a good chance I will run this one again with some sort of supper glue on my spray skirt and a willingness to get beat down by massive converging currents in the pool below. This 33 - 39 meter falls is an example of hydraulic perfection in Brazil. 3000 cfs on the Current River converge into a 15 foot wide power tongue that plummets into the pool 107 - 115 feet below. Due to heavy rain, the river was running about 9 feet above base flow creating a roiling pool with a 6 - 10 foot boil in the pool below. Certainly the act of running a falls like this seems to be the epitome of hedonism, but I like to think about it as a group descent. My safety and film team at the bottom consisted of Ryan Mac and Chris Zawacki. Ryan McPherson has been to Brazil for the last 5 years and knows more about Brazil's class V rivers than anyone else on the planet. Chris Zawacki is your go anywhere do anything positive laid back kind of guy that is an amazing boater and photographer. My company at the lip consisted of two of the most positive people on the planet... Jesse Coombs and Pedro Olivia. Pedro has been pushing this trip to the amazing quantity of huge runnable falls that exist in central Brazil and he can be seen in the photo living it up in the 70 degree spray of this monster. As you already know, Jesse Coombs is the hardcore kayaker \ business man that brings a coherent analytical perspective to extreme end of the whitewater spectrum.

The story goes on and will develop more as our trip comes to an end over the next 8 days. This is just a teasing taste of what you will see in this the third volume of Hotel Charley: The Lost World.

Thanks again to you and the whole Jackson Team/ Familly for building the safest, strongest, and most fun boats on the planet.

Cheers

Ben