Chilean Travels 2

Waiting for the sun.... Not always advisable while in Chile, as you may wait along time. Instead we made the best of a rainy situation and headed out to the river.

Unfortunately, after an exciting hike, threw bamboo hell, down to the lip of a 50 m gorge in slippery conditions, we found that a landslide had made a perfect 15-17 m waterfall on the Rio Florin un-runnable. Next we stopped in and checked out Nilahue, which also had been ravaged by landslides, which dropped the entire river left side off, making the landing very shallow.

Still looking for some big drops we headed up to the Rio Gol gol. After putting in and paddling a small tributary at the Argentinean border we found the Gol Gol very big, silty and cold. Start one big water mission! The run itself consists of 7 large waterfalls, a short canyon and a few rapids, normally all runnable - different story in flood! Lets just say it was good expedition training. We ended up walking, seal launching or climbing and roping around all the drops and paddling the rest of the white water very cautious of the next eddy. We were hoping that the drops might have side chutes or ledges with less water but they actually just funneled all the water into very nasty holes. Lesson learnt, if a water fall section of a river looks like its gonna be too big, paddle something else.

Next on the big water list was the Rio Petrohue. We stopped and paid to check out the big drop before putting on and just as we thought the main flow charged off the falls into a catastrophic sized hole. Thankfully, there were many side chutes and one of them was runnable, getting to it was another story. Above the falls were a few 100 m’s of big water crashing between large rocks in a maze of slots, boils and holes. Missing your line or even flipping here would probably have proven fatal as every other section of the falls were very un-runnable at these flows. After working our way to the lip of the falls myself and TC ran the drop to the cheers of the gathering tourist. This drop is definitely on the list to come run again when its sunny, picture perfect.

Continuing with the big water theme we showed up in Futa to an extremely high Futaleufu River, well over the gauge. TC and Mariann had only paddled the river this high once before so it was “Read and Run” as we rallied down the bridge to bridge section. It took us no more then 20 mins to complete the 7 km stretch, which was non-stop BIG waves the entire time. The Wina wave half way down the run would easily compare to the Gladiator wave of the Ottawa, except there were no eddies and no stopping to walk back up for a second chance. All in all it was pretty much the ultimate introduction to the Futa Big Water.

With continuing rain the rivers stayed high so we ran a few more laps on the bridge to bridge section and a few runs down the Rio Azul.

We spent Christmas and New Years paddling, feasting and partying at Mariann’s property on the Rio Futaleufu. A beautiful piece of property beside a sweet rapid called “Asleep at the Wheel”.

With sunny weather in the forecast we have been spending time getting ready for our expedition on the Rio Chochamo, the Yosemite of South America. I hope everything goes well and I have some good stories and photos from our trip.

Tyler Fox
Photos: Tyler Curtis & Mariann Saether

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