It has been a long time since I saw some of the first photos of the Santo Domingo. Ben Stookesberry and Jesse Combs on their epic first descent of what is probably the steepest kayaking section of the world. There’s nothing similar to see the photos of a place than to experience it by yourself, so when I heard that River Roots (Rush & Rafa) where planning a mission down there I was really excited to go with them and be part of it.
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| The crew posing with the Santo domingo valley behind! Such a wild and beautiful place! |
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Van from hell cleaning day!
We have done 3 rounds down the Sto. Domingo and they have been totally awesome. The put-in is under a bridge so you don’t even have to walk to get in, there’s a few class IV rapids before getting to the steep section starts. Then you got 2 options, you either run “Angel wings” or make a rappel down and start before the “Dome”.
The problem with those drops is that they’re so close one from each other that In case of getting injured or getting ejected on the first one you will probably end up swimming the next rapid wich will be insane and would hurt a lot…
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| GoPro shot of the Dome |
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| all stoked at the bottom!! |
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| love that view! |
After that the river follows with a 20 foot slide. Then you have the “Tobogan” wich is a super steep and fun 60 footer where you always get mad speed!
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| having some fun in Disneyland! |
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| the toboggan! photo by Gerd Serrasolses |
The final drop you can run it in 3 different places, straight and tight 40 footer on the right , or the main line in the middle wich has a really fun entrance into the drop, all of them are good to go but be aware of sticky holes at the bottom, might be a good place to hold on your paddle at high flows.
After the last waterfall the river gets way bigger because of an affluent coming from the right.
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Mattie B the boss slaying shots with his Red cam !! a 40 thousand dollars camera can
you believe anything can be so expensive??? |
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| photo by Gerd Serrasolses |
All that section goes through a really tall gorge with lots of high volume quality rapids. Make sure to stop and scout “ Big Dawg” that one has a complicated entrance into a massive pillow, definitely a big ass rapid!
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| Gerd running "big dawg" photo by Adam Mills |
After that there’s a few more quality rapids that we mostly sneaked on the right, except of Gerd and Evan who found their way through the big stuff! A few Km. later you will find your take-out on river left, road access so again no walking needed…
Overall the Sto. Domingo Is one of my top 5 rivers in the world ! Such a beautiful and special place, awesome and scary rapids and a amazing crew made it one of the best experiences in my whole life. I am definitely coming back for the full descent someday!!
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| happy brothers! |
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