3.01.2008

Center of Brasil: Mesas of Green

Southern Utah esque mesas punctuate the Central Brazilian Forrest Crossing into the State of Tocantins Brazil from Goias

The catch word in Central Brazil is waterfalls . These, the most southern tributaries of the Amazon, drop over sandstone and limestone escarpments to form some of the most runnable big drops this group of expedition kayakers has ever seen. Boating these rivers becomes an exercise in patients and poise: patients in the endless meanders of rivers that can't seem to decide on which direction to flow, and poise when the river charges into some of the most spactacular and committing box canyons that I have ever seen.

As the brain child of Ryan (Mac) McPherson, this first of it's kind class V expedition into Central Brazil has already set some impressive bench marks for all that follow. Our second day in Goias Mac, Chris Zawakee, and I set a new national waterfall record on the 23 meter Salto Abade. A week later Pedro Olivia and I match that height on a far schetchier high volume falls in the southern portion of Tocantins. What the final two weeks of the mision will bring is anyones guess, but everyone seems to have there eyes on a 30 plus meter drop that is bound to show up around the next corner.

Cataratas de Rio dos Coros

The second drop in the smoking gorge