Windmilling his kayak paddle into the breeze, Luc Mehl, 34, pulls onto the sandbar at the mouth of Mexico’s Rio Antigua and squints at the novelty of a seascape horizon in the hazy afternoon glare.  Two days of sleepless dysentery have drained Mehl’s prodigious vigor and his hands are blanched and clammy as we high-five. Still, he’s grinning with accomplishment in the salt air.

Eleven days earlier we’d set out pedaling bikes strapped with mountaineering and whitewater paddling gear in Cholula de Rivadavia, a ciudad sixty miles east of Mexico City. Without ever having visited Mexico before, Mehl composed a 220-mile bike/hike/packraft triathlon first to Pico de Orizaba (18,491 ft) and then descending through rainforest hamlets to a whitewater river. Now at sea level, we stand at the end of Mehl’s line.

Luc Mehl has risen to a sort of auspicious fame in his home state of Alaska. With a mind inclined towards calculations and an academic background in geophysics, Mehl scrutinizes topographic maps just for fun. In those maps he discovers long, elegant, and unlikely routes. With a line drawn, he turns his laser beam focus to traveling it. Completion of trips like his Mt Logan Traverse garner a mix of awe and envy from the cadre of wilderness adventurers who follow his exploits. I count myself among the admirers of his multi-sport traverses and so, without having met Luc Mehl, I’d accepted his invitation to join this trip.

Two other athletes were also enticed by Luc’s outline of a plan. Todd Tumolo, 27, and Steve Fassbinder, 38, are both veteran multi-sport adventurers. Tumolo’s work as a mountain guide on Denali and Fassbinder’s job building packrafts hint at how dedicated both are to wilderness travel. Converging for the first time in the Mexico City International Airport, Mehl, Tumolo and Fassbinder are easy to spot. Each is traveling light, wearing the only set of clothes they’ve brought. Their technical fabric pants and weathered trail running shoes stand out amid the sea of loafers and slacks.

Raised in McGrath, Alaska, population 346, Mehl abhors urban bustle. There must have been a moment when he weighed the option of a traverse beginning at the baggage claim, but settled instead for a bus ride out of Mexico City before starting. The movie playing on the bus’ little screens shows hobos leaping aboard a moving train, but I’m watching pedestrians sprint to swing themselves onto a bus weaving parallel to ours. As we burrow into the mash of nighttime traffic, I’m glad not to be on bikes yet.

Our route climbs gradually towards Pico de Orizaba. Its hazy triangle outline distills into a white pyramid as we crest the foothill town of Tlachichuca. The pavement ends more than 9,000 ft. below the summit but the climb continues on a rutted road blanketed by a duff of powdery volcanic dust. Sweat-slick, we’re magnets for the billows of airborne ash that swirl from our feet as we push our bikes up the steep 4wd track.

Hours after summiting we are back on bikes, skidding around loose hairpins, and coasting through towns where the rubbish piles still smolder. Our bikes rattle one degree less since selling or gifting our ice axes to local guides. Chickens patrol these streets and flocks of kids materialize from ditches, doorways, and alleys to chase our alien gringo bike gang. The summit’s lean atmosphere transitions to a misty, fragrant one where white rivers of vapor flow up from the rain forest below. More than 12,000 ft. below our morning high point, we ask a farmer permission to camp in the rows of cornfield he’s walking.  Sure, he smiles. It’s not his field.

The final leg of Mehl’s traverse entails paddling inflatable Alpacka Raft boats 80 miles downriver to the Gulf of Mexico. The seven-pound boats are nimble, durable, and pack down to the size of a small two-person tent. In their latest incarnation, zippers in the boats’ sterns allow us to pack equipment inside before blowing them up. With camping gear stowed, the boats have a low center of gravity that will add stability and help up punch through the grabby rapids below.

Long trips like this one don’t always fit into a neat narrative arc.  Even here at the end of Mehl’s line, it’s not a cut rope, but one unbraided. Tomorrow we’ll walk and hitchhike to Veracruz and then our group will fragment as Steve and I head home while Luc and Todd spend a few days river running. Our bikes have already spun onto their next venture. Maybe right now their gear racks are strapped with bushel bags of coffee beans as they roll a muddy jungle road. The ice axes are on their own continuum of adventures, lapping Pico de Orizaba as the volcano throws a daybreak shadow fifty miles long.

– More Photos –

Orizaba and drying corn stalks

All eyes towards Orizaba

With starry skies above, we slept under the stars for the first few nights

The bikes’ were geared for flat pavment riding and so the grind up the flanks of Orizaba was a thigh-fryer even in “granny gear”

Luc scrambles towards the skeleton of the Jamapa Tounge of Orizaba’s Norte Glacier. Just a few decades ago, the ice covered a headwall that is now mostly bare.

Rocks sculpted smooth protrude through withering glacier. Scientists estimate that Orizaba’s glacier lost “72 % of its surface area between 1958 and 2007.” (J. Cortes-Ramos and H. Delgado-Granados, 2012).

Convective heating in the jungle forms afternoon cumulus clouds

Walking on firm snow before sunrise

High-speed coasting through cloud forest

By sunset, we’d descended continuousuly for more than 12,000 ft from summit to campsite. 

Cheap brakepads disintegrated on steep downhills

Luc became so frustrated with hourly stops to re-tension spokes that he cut off tire knobs to allow his wobbly wheel to spin.

It’s what’s for dinner.

Doom takes a minute for oral hygene.

Overnight rust on my bike’s rims

Doom does the jungle boogie

Hundreds of acres of farmed coffee plants thrive in this forest understory.

Doom reaches the Rio Antigua put-in

Six pack for a sexy lady

Dinner time on the riverbank

Luc wore elbow pads in anticpation of gettin’ rad