1996 Barron Pickard Heath River Expedition

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bruce Barron organized and led the Barron Pickard Heath River Expedition in 1996. It roughly followed Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett’s 1910 Heath Survey Expedition, the only other exploration to explore the Heath. (While Fawcett’s map marks the source of the Heath, he actually did not discover the source and did not descend the river, see below)

 

Prior to the Barron-Pickard Heath Expedition, Barron worked with the Royal Geographical Society in London researching Fawcett’s original maps and journals and in Peru with biologists, anthropologists, missionaries, the Ese’eja Native tribe, and the Peruvian government to gain information on the Heath.

 

A major concern to the team was the possibility of unfriendly tribes still living on the upper Heath as there were in the past. Prior to the expedition Barron contacted hunters, anthropologists, botanists, zoologists, missionaries, oil and gold explorers about native inhabitants, but no one had any first hand knowledge of the Heath's upper reaches. Everyone contacted, however, believed that if we did encounter native people, they would be hostile, dangerous and would attack us.

 

By viewing satellite photos we discovered that although the Heath and Tambopata Rivers were for the most part quite distant from one another, near the headwaters they verged closely parallel for a short time, separated by what appeared to be a range of mountains and where we judged Fawcett had crossed. We hoped to save time by following part of Fawcett’s route in reverse. By descending the Tambopata flowing from the Andes with whitewater rafts, and then cutting through the jungle over the mountains to the Heath, we would then ascend the Heath, explore the headwaters, discover it’s source and descend it via inflatable kayaks we had carried from the Tambopata.

 

Beside hostile tribes, there were many rumors about the Heath’s upper region and source area: lost Inca goldmines, Spanish conquistador’s treasure, hidden pyramids, giant anacondas and new species of animals and plantlife.

 

A brief story of the expedition:

In May 1996, Bruce Barron led the Barron Pickard Heath River expedition to the source of the Heath River, following Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett's 1910 Heath Survey Expedition of the Bolivia / Peru frontier. Fawcett polled, paddled and dragged his canoes up the Heath from its outflow into the Madre di Dios River up into the headwaters where he had to abandon his dugouts. He explored upriver on foot until forced to retreat overland with the help of friendly natives to an adjacent river, the Tambopata. There he built balsas and rafted down to civilization.

 

Our exploration roughly matched Fawcett's in reverse. Starting in Cusco, we crossed over the Andes via a 16.000’ mountain pass and then rafted down the Tambopata River into the Amazon Basin to Quebrada Marte, a point where we thought Fawcett had crossed. From the Tambopata we cut through the jungle over the mountains and descending an unnamed creek to the Heath River. We continued our exploration up the Heath into the cloudforest, discovered its source and descended the river by inflatable kayaks we had carried from the Tambopata to a few days below the Rio Blanco where we met with a Peki Peki (boat) we had arranged to travel as far as navigable to meet us and then transport us to Sonene Village and then to the Madre de Dios (Mother of God River).

 

We faced many unforeseen hardships on the expedition: starvation, injury, flooding, disintegration of our team, and mental breakdown. We had encounters with Jaguars, anacondas, vampire bats, giant crocodilians, venomous insects and burrowing worms.

 

We started with fifteen members on rafts and divided into the exploration team of nine when we crossed to the Heath. Then due to food shortage and injury four members were forced to retreat and our group was split to five. In the end only two of us made it to the source.

 

Our expedition was successful in discovering the source of the Heath, explored its headwaters, and made the first descent. Our botanist and zoologist discovered new plant species, possible new bat species and we discovered a major macaw lick on the lower Heath.

 

 

We dealt with "sututus", human bot flys that bury their eggs under the skin and emerge as large worms, vampire bats, big rapids, physical hardships and some of us were forced to turn back

 

We encountered the supposed microbe Colonel Fawcett referred to in his fourth expedition, a microbe that had to do with peeling of skin that would come away in patches stacking to the socks and making undressing painful

 

We saw footprints and transient huts, but we met no Native people until lower on the river. We brought an Ese' eja elder (Guarayo as Fawcett describes them in his book) as our interpreter from Sonene Village at the bottom of the Heath.

 

There are no groups, or at least permanent groups living in the Heath headwaters today. We found only footprints on the Marte and a hunters camp near the confluence of the Rio Blanco.

 

Other Expeditions

(Barron) "I know of only two other expeditions that have reached the upper Heath.  A German expedition that ascended the Heath up to the confluence of the Rio Blanco (I believe in 1995), and an expedition by Fernando Rubio, a post guard at the Pampas Del Heath Control (Bolivian side), who I spoke with on our descent. He was very interested in Fawcett and our exploration and informed me that he had explored upriver to a few miles below the Marte, where he had attempted to cut across to the Tambopata via a creek he named the Pongo, trying to match Fawcett’s route. He began just below the last ridge of hills before the river flows into the flatlands and found it thick, swampy and rough going. He then quit and climbed the ridge to its summit and found easy travel all the way to the Tambopata. He believed that even with the trails used by the numerous natives at that time, they probably guided Fawcett along the easy going ridge top.

 

MEETINGS : ROYAL GEOGRAPHICL SOCIETY : 1915-1916. 317  CORRESPONDENCE.

The Source of the River Heath.

In Colonel Sir T. Holdich’s interesting paper on the “Peru-Bolivian Boundary Commission” in the February Journal, I notice (p. 110) that “Fawcett’s Survey of the Heath River… was accepted, but not his source of that river.”

                  Fawcett writes: May I be permitted to suggest that there has been a misapprehension?

                  I never actually visited the source of the Heath, but only traced the river to the junction of two streams near the source, the actual point being indicated on my map of 1910. The remainder, dotted in the map, was purely supposititious, the course of the small streams having been estimated by the general contour of the mountains.

                  My work in 1910 was to trace the main course of this hitherto unknown river ; and not only were the experiences of the small party extremely exacting, as it always is in ascending small rivers, but the terms of the International Treaty governing this section of the frontier rendered any detail of the numerous small streams forming the head of the Heath quite unnecessary at that time ; whilst the lateness of the season, combined with  the need of reaching the junction of the Lanza and the Tambopata, and a subsequent descent of the latter to Astillero with a party rather the worse for its adventures, rather curtailed time for any attention to unnecessary detail.

                  The paper leaves the impression that surveys did not agree, whereas in point of fact I had not and never have actually visited the Heath above the last point of which I have recorded the geographical co-ordinates, which I put roughly as some 10 miles from the head of the largest stream which formed the river.

P.H. Fawcett (Lieut.-Colonel).