Rio Micos–Kayak & Hike

The Aldea Huasteca is where we meet up with Tom McEwen who runs Liquid Adventures from the DC area. Tom got seriously hurt last summer kayaking and spent 2 months in the hospital so is not able to paddle this year.
His company, however, is still running their advanced Mexican paddling trip. My plans were to meet him on the last two days of his trip and see where he was paddling. They rolled in after we did on Wednesday after two hard days of paddling with their group of 10 paddlers.
The Micos is a short 2 mile run over about 8-10 waterfalls, one right after another. This picture show the last 4 falls. Actually there is a nice pool between all the falls.
I first ran the Micos 15 years ago on a Keel-Hauler trip. It was very low water.
Last year the water was too high here so I ran the Rio Ojo Frio with Tom & a guide. In 2012 I ran again with Tom and a large group.
This river has Hydro plants on it to take advantage of the big drop from the mountains into the town of Rio Valles.
For comparison I posted three pictures of the last falls before a nice 2 mile paddle back to the camp which is right on the river.

This is what it looked like this year.

This is from 2012 when the river was lower.

This is from our low water run in 2000.

I don't think I have ever run these falls cleanly and this year was no exception. I’m looking for excuses but when I got to this drop I thought I knew the line. As I entered Diego shouted paddle hard right. I paddled but not hard enough. I was way too far left and slid onto the shallow travertine rock. I rolled in the 3” deep water 3 times, at least one time dragging my knuckles against the sharp rock. But I found myself upright and stopped sliding just before the final drop into the pool at the center of the falls. I caught my breath pushed myself into the current and dropped down into the pool where Diego was ready to give me a needed bow rescue. I made it with scratches on the backs of my knuckles on both hands. No cuts just my bruised ego.

The other paddlers were going to have lunch and run all the falls again and then head to camp. I asked Diego and another girl who was also done for the day to paddle back to camp with me so I could clean up the scrapes and put some Neosporin on them.

On Friday the paddlers were all heading up to run the Rio Salto, I had run that river on our 2000 trip and it was also nothing but waterfalls so I opted for a hike with Peggy to get the first 2 pictures of the falls.

The little park is full of food & craft vendors but the views are worth the 10 peso (0.75) entrance fee. And its not that long of walk from camp.

Here is a picture from Pat & Mike

Saturday’s Driving Plans