Bystrze CURRENTS OF THE COLCA CANYON AND THE CANOANDES EXPEDITION

In the 1970s, a group of amateur paddlers from Poland found themselves where no others had been before: In the depths of Peru's Colca Canyon, the deepest in the world. What should have been the culmination of a two-year road trip became a pivotal moment in whitewater history whose impact echoed farther than anyone could have imagined. Joe Potoczak reflects on their story and why the Canoandes Expeditions' search for adventure and freedom still resonates today.

Words: Joe Potoczak

May 1981 Four days into the first descent of the Colca River, Andrzej Pietowski, the expedition leader, slammed into a rock in the middle of a boulder-choked rapid. His hand-built fiberglass kayak splintered upon impact. Unable to recover, he was ejected, forced to swim the rest of the steep, sieved-out section. He emerged, eye bloody, teeth shooting with pain. His paddle was in hand, his kayak was torn to shreds, but he was alive. His team of six Polish paddlers, known as the Canoandes, were in the high desert of the Peruvian Andes, suffering their way down what was argued to be the deepest canyon in the world: the Colca Canyon. Resting at the bottom of the Valley of Volcanoes, the Colca is over 4,000 meters deep—twice as deep as…

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Kayak Session (Digital) - 1 Issue, Summer 2022

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