Cascada Bonito

Rio Bonito, what a fitting name.

Well we packed our bags and headed to Argentina with a few drops and rivers in mind. The first thing we did was rent a nice samll Chevy Corsa. With four creek boats and gears it was quite the fit. Making it through the trechery of the Siete Lagos road with minor issues we were all the sudden at our first stop. CASCADA BONITO.

The outlook view of the falls from 300 feet away.

Scouting the enterance from way above on the canyon rim.

This is the opening drop of Twich V that Tao and Ben ran on their trip here a few years back. We Scouted for a while and had some zen moments before we decide that all of us were going to huck this monster. Thing about this drop is that opnce you decide you want to run it you have to hike way upstream and run a tight gorge to the lip. It´s totally committing once youre in there. So with that we all put in made our way through such a beautiful canyon with some drops and portages before we came upon the scaryest horizon I have ever seen.

Chris on a crack drop in the gorge above the falls.

Me scouting the drop in a very committed and lonley place.

Once we made it here and did a super class V climb to see the lip, we saw the drop and looked at eachother in awww! The level was lower than Lj and Trip had run it before so the drop looked different and more likely to boof you off the end of the twisty slide. We sat there and talked and waited only a few minuets before LJ walked up to his boat.

The basic run down for the line was: start left drop into the the right wall pick up lots of speed sliding down to the left again and fly off a crazy curler coming off the wall about 60-70 feet. I don´t know how tall it is in total, but it is gagantic for sure.

Lj on the move, running this one first for the day. But he ran this thing two years on the filming trip for Mission EP with Trip.

Lj threw his paddle had a good softish hit at the base and hand rolled up. We could not see his line only the slide part. Ian went next...

Ian coming in hot off the curler ready to fly high.

Ian tucking and ready to take a huge hit. He swam from a forced exit at the base of the falls, but was unscathed and stoked.

Then Chris and I got in our boats together to run close because I didnt want to wait alone.

Chris picking up speed before freefalling. This gives you a good idea of the size of the drop.

Chris also swam due to a big hit and not being able to hand roll in the pool, even with taking odd his elbow pad for more surface area. Then I came 30is seconds later...

Me in the same place just focusing on not boofing. How big is this thing?

I can only speak for myself but this was the biggest and scaryest drop I have ever run. So much speed and so long to fall that I was worried about boofing and breaking my back. But the drop just sent me sailing in the air I threw my paddle and missed one handroll before grabbing my paddle that was next to me and rolling up imploded and stoked as I have ever been to be at the bottom of something.

Me impoloded in the pool, Chris still swimming in the pool, feeling like a million bucks. Can´t you tell.

The group stoked to be all good and all at the bottom.

All was well and we ran a bit more whitewater before hiking out back up to the car and heading down to the awsome city of Bariloche in search of more rivers to run.

Later E.G.