3 - 1/13/2011 - Rio Pacuare Headwaters (Costa Rica)

On the way to the Headwaters. Can you tell I'm terrified?

The previous day we were supposed to run the Upper Upper Pacuare, but the rain stopped us. Instead, we did some non-river activities and hoped for the best. The Pacuare Headwaters is only reachable by a steep 3 mile horse trail over a mountain. We had originally thought that we would just be using horses to pack in our gear, but it turned out that we would also be riding horses. I was terrified - I had never ridden a horse before. That made for a long night, and it didn't help that it continued to rain hard.

We got up at 6AM and hit the road. It was a 90 minute drive to get to the trailhead. When we got there, we helped load up the horses and got going. My poor horse did a great job slogging through the mud with me riding. I did my best to lean forward and back to help, and I made it the whole way without any problems. There were several places where the trail was very narrow against steep cliffs, and I made sure not to look down.

Our first view of the river

We were a little concerned that we might get to the river and find it too high, but when the river came into view, we saw that it was at a great level. We got down to the river and pumped up the IKs. We had a quick lunch and got going.


The Pacuare Headwaters has tons of rapids - we estimated that there were more than 50 in 5 miles, most class III, with a few easier and a few harder. I portaged the big class IV because I didn't feel good about the big hole near the entrance. Otherwise, we all did great. At one point, we came to a creek with a 10-foot falls at the end, and a couple of guys carried up to run it with no problems.

In the thick of things

As we approached the beginning of the Upper Upper run, we saw a side creek come in that was bright red mud. It entered the river as a red stream until the mud was mixed into the water by a big rapid. At the end of the run, we estimated that we had around 3000 cfs, which was big water for the river, but a perfect level for our trip.

This was the best part of the Costa Rica trip, and I am glad we did it.