Exploring the Texolo

This is the river I have been waiting for 5 weeks, since the day I got to Mexico, to get on. The Texolo drains the 4th largest mountain in North America, so the scenery is second to none. Our crew was none other than; Dave "the brave" Zinn, Lil' Jon Groth, Karzy Karl Moser, Jorge, and Myself. Wednesday morning we left our hotel in Jalcomulco early in the morning. We had gotten enough beta from locals and T-Bone, Seth, and Willie (who did this run a year ago) to know that this river had the goods. We knew that there was a 60 footer, a 100+ footer, and tons of good class V rapids in this gorge. The problem was we had no clue what the water level was going to be and people had said there may be no where to stop above the 60 foot drop, due to the box canyon it was located in.

LJ making his way across the sketchy bridge on the way to look at the 100 footer.

This is the 100+ footer at the bottom of the gorge, that thing is clean, but huge!! For a scale look at the rock left of the lip in the picture, that is 10-12 feet tall!

Our plan was to go hike down in to the canyon to get a look at both the waterfalls and an overall feel for the gorge. That is what we did, with our friends Porfi and local kayaker Jorge, we found the trails and were able to see that there was an eddy above the 60 footer and you could, if necessary, get out and jump to the pool below. We saw the top half of the drop and dubbed it good to go. The other issue was that above the 100+ foot drop the river splits and the left channel is a direct route to set the world record. With these thoughts in mind we decided that the water level was perfect and we would come back at dawn the following day to complete the 2 day river run in 1 long day.

Jorge running the slot drop on the Xico, right about to go deep!!!

The rest of the day was good as well we ate lunch in an awesome mexican town named Xico high in the mountains. After our Mole we went and put on the rio Xico at a low flow. It was still really fun and had some quality drops on it. The gorge that it flows through is more like a half pipe than anything.

The best drop of the run was a slot 20 footer that sent you deep at the bottom, way more powerful than it looks. Photos by Dave Zinn

After the Xico we returned to Jalcomulco ate dinner and went to bed with thoughts of big waterfalls and deep gorges lingering in our heads. Later E.G.