Climbing up the slick rock, I could just see the bottom of a big slide, which, somehow, looked good to go. But the river kept getting steeper. I looked back at the boys, who shared the same question: Would this rapid continue to be runnable? Almost unbelievably, it was. And, just one channel to the left, surrounded by Gabon’s vibrant jungle, was one of the best, most unique rapids I had ever seen. JACKPOT! I exhaled in relief. This is why I had come to the Ivindo.
I first heard about the Ivindo River in Gabon when Olaf Obsommer told me the story of their first exploratory trip back in 2007. He recounted tales of huge rapids,hidden away in countless channels flowing through the deep lush jungle, where access was tricky and time-consuming, with no way to explore or look into most of the channels. I was immediately intrigued. A river around 150 km long, hidden deep away in one of the wildest places on earth—with elephants, gorillas, all kinds of crazy snakes, and more sounded too epic to ignore.
The more I looked into it, the more I realized this might be a gem of a river, something quite special and different from most other exploration trips I had done. People had been down the Ivindo before, with the first modern-day Whitewater descent in 1998. But since the river spreads into sometimes 20-plus channels, there were still many rapids that no one had run—or even seen.
It turns out there isn’t much content or information about the Ivindo available. What little I could find was based on a few pictures on the internet, a few tourist websites about the park, and some questionable Chinese-dubbed videos on YouTube. Still, I spent countless days looking for any hint of information on rapids, levels, or seasons. My
