Dr. Rocky Contos, owner of the international whitewater outfitter Global Grand Canyons, is a legendary expedition paddler and doctor of neuroscience. He started kayaking in the Sierras in the early 1990s and fell in love with multi–day Class V. In the 2000s he notched over 100 first descents in Mexico. He founded Sierra Rios and Global Grand Canyons to publicize and protect rivers, and to bring paddlers on incredible expeditions around the globe. His lifetime goal is to run the deepest canyons on every continent. In this interview Rocky discusses that goal, as well as ambitious plans for the Stikine River.
SZ: Who are you and what do you do?
RC: I’m a lifelong paddler. I grew up in San Diego and the Bay Area. I started kayaking in high school and learned how to roll at UC Davis in the early ‘90s. It was tough to find partners for hard whitewater, so I soloed a lot. I liked multi-day trips the most, and I bought a raft so I could share the experience with my friends.
I primarily kayaked for 20 years through college, grad school, and post doc. But I would occasionally organize private trips and row rafts on rivers like the Salt, the Grand, and the Middle Fork of the Salmon. I also guided and taught kayaking. I was always interested in exploring, and realized there were a ton of new rivers to explore in Mexico.I spent a lot of time there in the rainy season starting in 2000. I racked up around 100 first descents, the majority on multi-day trips in the Pacific drainages. I wrote a couple of guidebooks to those rivers. I’ve always wanted to see rivers protected, and a bunch of those Mexican rivers had dams planned.
One particularly impactful trip for me was a 2010 solo kayak trip down the Rio Jatate and Rio Usumacinta, the River of the Sacred Monkey. It’s known for Mayan Ruins and howler monkeys. It was a wild experience—very raftable— and one I wanted to share.
The outfitters from the ‘80s and ‘90s had left because of “bandidos”. But I didn’t have any problems on my solo trip, and the locals said everything was “tranquilo”, so I brought my wife and friends the next year. With that raft trip, and another on the Río Mulatos-Aros, I started Global Grand Canyons. These multi-day raftable rivers offer similar experiences to the Middle Fork Salmon Salmon and Grand Canyon of the Colorado, but in different ways. No one does them because they are remote and people are afraid of narcos and animals.
SZ: Those first solo trips sound like some real Indiana Jones shit.
RC: Yeah, some of those trips were kind of like that. I love the paddling lifestyle and multi day trips. Being out on the water for long periods of time, covering long sections and living on the river is my favorite way to paddle.
SZ: Are your clientele experienced paddlers who need logistical support or non paddlers?
RC: Through the company, I offer general trips that anyone can join but most of my customers are experienced river runners. I’m primarily an outfitting service for experienced boaters and guides. I have programs for river guides who can join trips for a reduced rate if they are willing to help out with safety and logistics. I run most of the trips as an outfitting service. A group gets together and uses Global Grand Canyons to set up shuttle, pack food, and obtain permits.
SZ: Is that your full time job?
RC: Yeah, that’s all I do. The business keeps growing and getting busier, but it’s also fun since I’m always exploring and opening up new destinations. In 2012 I started working in Peru. That’s when I discovered the most distant source of the Amazon. I spent seven months down there kayaking the headwaters. Now I run trips on the Maranon, which is the Grand Canyon of the Amazon. Most people do the Main Section in 12-14 days. The full Grand Canyon and Jungle Sections are 500 miles. I’ve got a group down there now doing the whole thing in 32 days.
SZ: Is Global Grand Canyons similar to guided Himalayan climbing trips?
RC: Yeah, in a way it is. Most of my clients paddle or row; they are not just along for the ride. On the Outfitting Services trips, they participate in camp chores too. The Himalaya guiding companies tend to offer more personalized expeditions and charge exorbitant rates. I don’t do that. I base the rates on what people would pay for a similar trip domestically, and the rates can be minimized with larger groups.
SZ: Do international destinations require permits?
RC: Most of them do not because no one else is set up to run the rivers commercially. I have to register my business to legally operate. I have bases in eight countries, and I try to employ local guides.
SZ: One of your goals is to paddle the deepest canyons on every continent from source to sea. How is it going?
RC: It’s a long process. I like to do those trips from source to sea and document it really well. That’s what drew my attention to the Stikine. I used to think North America’s deepest gorge was Rio Piaxtla, but realized later that it’s the Lower Stikine.
My first trip there was an attempted source-to-sea in 2018. We paddled the Upper but fires shut us down at the Cassiar bridge. I also suffered from a delayed onset malaria I had contracted on the Blue Nile 10 months earlier, so I wasn’t in shape for the canyon. I came back the next year and kayaked from the bridge to the mouth in Wrangell, Alaska. The deepest part of the canyon is down in the lower section.
SZ: That source-to-sea mission is super cool.
RC: Yeah, the Upper has some mild to moderate whitewater, but it’s beautiful and remote. It goes through some cool canyons. In 2019 I was able to finish the trip, kayaking with Scott McBride through the Grand Canyon section and finishing in a raft down the lower section to Wrangell.
SZ: You also rafted it?
RC: Yes. I never thought the Stikine was raftable until I developed inflatable structures called AutoRights which allow automatic re-righting of normal rafts. Although the concept is somewhat similar to the Creature Craft, it’s quite different in design and implementation.The Creature Craft is an integral design. They are made so you can throw your weight around to roll. A big fat tube obstructs your view. The AutoRight is a different design with four legs and feet on the ends of the raft so your view is not obstructed.
It started at a bad Class V+ rapid called the Gauntlet on a Blue Nile trip. We had an inflatable kayak. We were sending the rafts down as ghost boats (unmanned) and it seemed like the rafts would probably flip so I said, “Don’t deflate the inflatable kayak. Put it on top of the raft as extra flotation.”
The raft flipped and the IK helped roll it back over, and that’s how the idea was born. I was already manufacturing rafts at a factory in China so I gave them an initial design and tested it. I’ve made design changes every year since the first iteration in 2018, and I have a solid product now. I use them in operations around the world.
The core idea is extra flotation strapped to a regular raft allows the raft to re-right itself. It was essential on the Yangtze. When they tried to raft it in the ‘80s they got demolished and aborted the expedition. But with the RaftRight, we navigated the Yangtze safely. If you don’t have something like that you flip, people swim, people drown. We regularly use them on the Zambezi now too.
SZ: You rafted the Stikine under 300 cms. What’s it like at low water?
RC: The first time I kayaked it we paddled out on 500 cms and it was massive. My other runs were at 220-350 cms. Some of the rapids, like Site Zed and V-Drive get worse at low water. Others get easier. The big danger at high water is the length of the rapids, the power of the water and chaos of the whirlpools and boils. I think 300 to 400 is ideal.
SZ: What’s harder: rafting or kayaking the Stikine?
RC: I would not say one is harder than the other. Everyone feels the big water regardless of the craft. It pushes you around. You have to read the water and stay in control, otherwise you run into trouble real quick.
Rafting the tight spots is harder since rafts are big, bulky and slow to respond. But you can tackle bigger waves and holes. Just like in a kayak there are some spots you have to be particularly cautious of, and the AutoRight does not solve everything. It can solve flips, but not recirculation in big retentive holes. It won’t prevent a pin against a wall or rock.
SZ: Are you strapped in?
RC: Yeah, I’m seat belted at the waist, and both feet are cinched down with straps.
SZ: What are your future Stikine plans?
RC: I hope to accomplish the first one-day raft descent, which I think should be pretty easy since I know the river well now. There’s plenty of daylight in August, and you gain a lot of time if you run Site Zed.
SZ: Are you going to be the first to send Site Zed since it changed?
RC: I am planning to row SIte Zed on my next trip, but you never know. The first couple times I was afraid and chickened out. I sent the boat down by itself, ghost boating. But each time the ghost boat only flipped once at the big crux hole drop.
SZ: How do you catch the ghost boat?
RC: A friend of mine, Felix Lalonde, waited in the lower part of Site Zed in his kayak. The raft went past where the kayakers put in after the portage. It stopped on the right side of the river. Felix paddled out in his kayak to the raft, hopped in it, then rowed the raft back to shore. This is typical ghost boating protocol.
SZ: Is Global Grand Canyons going to start running Stikine trips?
RC:The Stikine is a Global Grand Canyon for sure, and I believe it’s possible to safely take passengers, but I wouldn’t take them through every drop. On the other grand canyons we portage the biggest rapids. The Stikine is full of class V, but there are spots that are particularly problematic. One is Site Zed. It’s hard to walk all the way to the bottom on the right. But on the left you can walk all the way to the end, so I’d want to get the passengers over there.
Pass/Fail and Wasson’s is another crux section. However, there’s a gully that leads up to the canyon rim just above Pass/Fail. It’s two kilometers from there to the Site Zed camp so it should be possible to walk passengers around that whole section.
Scissors through Guard Dog is the other big obstacle. The new Guard Dog is huge, but last year I rafted it. I think it was the first descent of the new rapid. A lot of people are running it now. This year when I was there it was 300 and I thought the raft might get stuck and cartwheeled. But I just got in and fired it up. It pushed me over to the left wall and ended up being a good run.
SZ: Rowdy. What’s your favorite river?
RC: There are so many. I really liked the Yangtze, but unfortunately so much is destroyed at this point by dams.
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