If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. That’s the stick-to-it-ness Ben Stookesberry and his team is applying to Ecuador’s Class V-VI Rio Chalupas, where they recently hiked in to retrieve their kayaks they left in the jungle four years ago after being forced to abort their earlier mission and hike out.
Stookesberry’s Instagram post from Sunday, Jan. 26, reads: “Yesterday, the first descent of Ecuador’s Rio Chalupas finally reached a conclusion. Thirty-eight months ago, @ecuskayaker and I left our boats behind after I macheted my knee while trying to scout the final gorge. This time around I let Elder, Omar, Jon, Jairo, Hendri and their CRACK team of PUMA RUMI Kichwa handle the Class V+ macheteando. Without those guys and the support of our great friend Fabian, there is no way we could have pulled this off.”
As it was Diego and crew pulled those still beautiful @jackson.kayak ‘s out of those middle-earth-mountains at 1 a.m. on day 5 by the narrowest of margins. Yours truly pressed paused and bivvied up around 2,000 meters that last night to save what’s left of rickety old knees for one more heli-free attempt ✊. For more on this story check @tetongravity@streamonmax ‘s Ragging Torrent 🎥. Already seen that 💩 ? Stay tuned for some never before told juicy bits in the next @kayaksessionmag installment of “Friend of the Fearless.”
In the fall of 2021, after a two-pronged attempt of first descent of Ecuador’s notoriously steep Rio Chalupas — released in a film for TGR/HBO’s “Edge of the Earth” series — Stookesberry returned home with a new scar…and newfound respect for the river. The leg wound, resulting from machete swipe to his leg on the second leg of the trip, just missed his femoral artery.
“It was day eight of a kayak mission to finish the Rio Chalupas in Ecuador with Diego Robles,” said Stookesberry after the accident, who’s sponsored by the likes of Eddie Bauer, Jackson Kayak, Kokatat, Werner Paddles, Teton Gravity Research, Boof Sessions and Jungle Roots. “A month earlier, Eric Boomer, Nouria Newman, Chris Korbulic, Sandy McEwan and I failed to finish the Chalupas in our month-long effort because of high water. Boomer and I stayed to finish it, teaming up with DiegoOn day eight while scouting downstream looking for a route, I made a light chop though tangled vines and felt a sharp but very light strike on my knee cap. I figured it couldn’t be that bad. I figured wrong. The cut was at least a quarter inch deep, and by the time we returned to our camp a tendon was protruding through like pushing the broad side of your tongue through pursed lips.”
Read more on Stookesberry’s machete accident here.