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Locked In: Filming the First Descent of Papua New Guinea’s Beriman River Gorge

  • July 15, 2016
  • Ben Osborne
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There are no sure things in adventure filmmaking. Even in a perfectly remote location with the best athletes in the world and gyro-stabilized helicopter cameras that cost more than a black market kidney, the questions are always there: Can it be done? What if the guys don’t go? Or worse, what if they go and don’t come back?

All captions by Benny Marr

DSC08341
Pedro Oliva relaxes in the calm (penis-shaped) pool that separates the unrunnable canyon 3 from runable canyon 4. Benny Marr receives the final boat from Ben Stookesberry, in a three-stage rappel. The team used an impact hammer drill to set anchors, a last minute addition to heavily packed boats, for an estimated 10-day expedition into the Beriman. CHRIS KORBULIC photo.

“That is the trickiest thing in my position,” says Squamish-based filmmaker, Bryan Smith. “We ride that line, where our success and failure parallel the success and failure of the athletes almost perfectly. If they decide not to go, we fail. If they go and fail, we probably fail too. And if something happens, in that place, there is no infrastructure. No one can help you; the people are beautiful and the landscape is beautiful, but there is nothing there to lean on.”

 

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LEFT: Pedro Oliva waits to receive a boat down to river level after a two-stage, 76-metre (250-foot) rappel. After many days of work to make gains up and away from the river, Pedro hoped to stay high and continue to portage. The group decided to return to river level. BENNY MARR photos.

‘That place’ is the Island of New Britain, a crescent-shaped slab of jungle that punches up from the South Pacific like the spine of some ancient green leviathan. Eighty-eight kilometres east of Papua New Guinea, New Britain is home to five active volcanoes, and with a high point of 2,438 metres, (7,999 feet) it’s essentially a 520-kilometre stretch of rain-slammed limestone mountains blanketed in thick, wet, crumbling jungle, cut deep with near-bottomless river gorges.

 

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Stookesberry takes a middle line on the first waterfall of the expedition. REELWATER photo.

And the most near-bottomless of all is Beriman River, a 40-kilometre run of vertical cliffs, imposing waterfalls and overall jungle chaos nicknamed “The Grand Canyon of the Pacific” by expedition/exploration kayakers like Ben Stookesberry and Chris Korbulic. There aren’t that many rivers like the Beriman left untouched on this planet, so with whitewater paddlers Benny Marr and Pedro Oliva also on the trip, Bryan Smith and his crew had all the necessary ingredients for an epic film. Only problem was – no one was sure if the river could be run at all.

 

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Korbulic tucks into an ideal angle on the first waterfall of the expedition (above canyon 1). BENNY MARR photo.

“I think everyone felt like we were in over our heads,” Bryan says. “The athletes saw the river, then we [film crew] went and looked at it and it scared the shit out of all of us. It looked impossible, but Stookesberry said, ‘let’s give it two days and see what happens.’”

 

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The air changes, both in temperature and smell, about 10 km from the ocean. Portrait photo shoot opp! CHRIS KORBULIC photos.

Ben Stookesberry is a natural leader, and with 120 first descents in 32 countries, he’s one of the most experienced expedition kayakers in history. “We knew this entire river wouldn’t go,” Bryan says. “We knew there would be canyons that were un-runnable, but Ben is the kind of guy who tries to find solutions to these problems. When you are working with people you know, and are at the highest level in the sport, you really trust their ability to make decisions that they are comfortable with, but even then, if they say ‘yes,’ you know it’s a maybe. And how much pressure are we, the film crew, putting on them?”

 

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Ben working through a tight line on day 11. Deep in the canyon’s carved from years of water beating against limestone the jungle would often consume any possibility of scouting. The helicopter assisted scouting was integral to descending these sections of whitewater. STOOKESBURY photo.

One big factor to consider was that once the team hit the water they would be totally on their own. “That river is so remote,” Bryan says. “It’s one thing to commit to canyon on the Ashlu, [a river near Squamish] but on the Beriman, there is no one coming to help you. We had David Adamson, one of the best heli pilots in the world, but with 4,000-foot jungle canyon walls, there was no way he could get us down to the water on 70 to 80 per cent of the river. We didn’t even have the option to long line. Who has a 4,000-foot long line? The commitment level was so high.”

 

PNG2
LEFT: Day 3 or 4 (or whatever) into the main portage, which started after canyon 4. We stopped because it was dark. We hacked into the jungle, anchored the tent to the traverse line, and slept well deep in the jungle. RIGHT: Chris rinses and dries his feet at camp—day 10. BENNY MARR photos.

After mulling it over, Stookesbury, Marr, Korbill and Oliva made the call and dropped into a 13-day, totally self-supported descent that included blind canyons, high-consequence whitewater and portages that would require ropes and big-wall rock climbing skills to haul the 100-pound boats and gear up the sheer cliffs. At one point, the team took an entire day to make 500 metres of progress.

 

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Ben Stookesberry – “What the f**k was I thinking?”… Just kidding, helicopters go fast, so Stookes hangs onto his headset and looks for options in one of the canyons. CHRIS KORBULIC photo.

“A good film needs characters who will push beyond what seems doable and make it work,” Bryan adds. “There will always be opportunities to throw in the towel, its’ too high, too burly or too much… And failure is part of all our lives, and there is nothing wrong with that. But people like to watch people succeed, especially in the face of heavy adversity.”

 

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With a helicopter hovering overhead, adding urgency to an already stressful situation, Korbulic leads Pedro into Gorge 1, one of the best sections of whitewater on the river and reminiscent of the Ashlu canyon in Squamish, BC. BENNY MARR photo.

He credits the instincts and talent of the entire paddling team for the expedition’s success, but says Stookesberry’s experience and leadership played a key role. “He questioned this very thoroughly and freaked out a bit but he never said, ‘it doesn’t go’. If he had, I think that would have been it, but this team had the right patience and persistence to let all the little nagging impossibilities work themselves out. That’s not to say they went into the river with all those questions answered . . . the first significant gorge they paddled put them into almost two kilometres of running Class 5 whitewater blind. It was the most committing canyon on the whole river. Once they dropped in, they were locked in.”

 

DSC06657
Pedro and Benny enjoy “peripheral entertainment” above the first canyon, above the first waterfall, above total commitment. CHRIS KORBULIC photo.
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Related Topics
  • Ben Stookesberry
  • Benny Barr
  • Beriman River
  • Chris Korbulic
  • kayaking
  • Papua New Guinea
  • Pedro Oliva
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