Editor's Note: Check out Trip's photogallery on Costa Rica!

We felt strange approaching the Costa Rican laborers armed with a 20-inch machete, dressed like colorful kayaking Easter eggs, but probably not as strange as they felt. These two men were local farmers, puzzled why we would want to take bright plastic boats down a flooding river, but they were more than happy to help us find our way back to civilization.

Earlier that day, Trip Jennings, Andy Maser and I had started down the muddy water of the Terrazu anxious to find out what was waiting for us downstream. Our mission was simple - find big, clean waterfalls like the well-known drops of La Paz Waterfall Gardens. Trip had been studying maps, and was convinced we could find some epic first descents. A little creek in the heart of coffee country stood out right away.

The gradient of the Terrazu looked manageable, and it appeared to have a decent drainage. The fickle weather patterns of the rainy season left our driver, Diego, concerned about the flow, but as usual, he was more than happy to drop us off at the put-in.

"With hearts beating fast, we hopped out of our boats to find a spectacular 50-foot vertical waterfall plunging into a gorged-out pool."

We loaded up the Diego’s Kayak Excursions rig with our gear and hopped in behind Diego’s mom. The mother of 12, in her late 60’s, she was a great addition to the crew. Tough as nails and focused on navigation, she kept Diego more or less on the right path as we wound our way down into the Terrazu Valley off of the Inter-American Highway from Turrialba.

After three hours of missed turns and vague directions from confused locals, Diego and his mother managed to find a prime spot for us to launch into the unknown. We were absolutely stoked to explore.

The first major horizon line was found within the opening quarter mile of the run. Up to that point, the general character of the Terrazu had been chunky read-and-run class III-IV. Trip had the machete, so he cleared a path through the dense overgrowth that lined the banks to a nice viewpoint for the drop. He came back slashing through the tall grass and bushes with wide eyes and smiling. It was a 20-foot double drop with a 4-foot boof as a lead-in. After the boof, the water dropped about 10 feet into a narrow slot and then launched another 10 feet off of a kicker into a punchbowl. All three of us ran the drop clean and admired the lush jungle setting as we exited the pool.

As we charged downstream, the skies opened and the Terrazu picked up more flow as flooded tributaries came crashing down into the creek. Almost instantly it appeared to have doubled in volume and continued to morph into darker shades of brown as the rain stripped mud from the banks. Before I knew it, I was eddied out literally five feet above the lip of a blind horizon with Trip and Andy on my tail. Andy noticed my scramble and stopped just upstream while Trip squeezed in next to me. With hearts beating fast, we hopped out of our boats to find a spectacular 50-foot vertical waterfall plunging into a gorged-out pool. "Looks big", Andy said. Trip and I agreed.