The Epicocity Project crew teamed up with National Geographic last month to descend the River of Doubt in Brazil. After 10 days in the Amazonian jungle, the expedition has returned.

Inspired by tales of gigantic fish in the journals of Teddy Roosevelt—who paddled and portaged the River of Doubt, since renamed the Rio Roosevelt, in 1914—the EP crew and a team of scientists headed into the jungle in search of the mythical monsters.

Trip Jennings describe's some of the team's finds on his Wave Sport blog, but you'll have to wait for the National Geographic Channel special to find out whether Roosevelt's was just another big fish story... 

We followed the paddle strokes of Roosevelt and are the first team to descend the river in more than a decade, the fourth team ever. This stretch of the River Of Doubt — now renamed the Rio Roosevelt — is nearly inaccessible because of its remote location and rapids that prevent navigation. Roosevelt’s expedition was forced to portage many large rapids and nearly lost much of the team. So far, EP’s team of explorers and scientists has only had to make one 5-hour portage around a rapid too burly for the rafts to take.

And this expedition’s scientists have a huge advantage over Roosevelt’s team with modern whitewater rafting equipment and EP’s experienced expedition paddlers to ensure a safe 300-kilometer descent of the River of Doubt. Roosevelt also wrote about a giant fish on his expedition. Our goal in Brazil is to complete a biodiversity inventory of the river and to find and document the giant fish written about by Roosevelt, before damming, mining and deforestation change the ecosystem forever.

See more photos and read about some of the team's discoveries here.

Photo Adam Mills Elliot
Source: Wave Sport Blog