Chile part 1: Pucon and the north

After coming back from chile last year in March I was waiting the whole summer to go back to one of the best winter kayaking destinations. In the middle of November my long waiting had an end and just when the weather in Europe turned nasty and cold I packed all my gear and took off to Chile.

Two days later I tepped out of the bus in Pucon where the two Norwegian girls Nini and Erika, the American Nick and Jeff from Canada were already waitiung for me. Lucky me, the four had already organized a car and a flat, so just a few hours after my arrivalI I found myself at the put in of the upper Palguin. What an unique playground and incredible start of my Chile season this winter!

During the next days we had a lot of fun on all the classics in and around Pucon like the Nevado, the Trancura, the Maichin and the Puesco till the rest of the German-Crew  – John, Ali and Thilo – arrived.

After our group was complete and everybody got some warm up runs done in Pucon we loaded our truck and headed north towards the Rio Claro. On the way we drove all the way up the Laja valley to paddle the very short but continuous section above the dam. We had to wander around for a while to find the put in but once we reached the river we got a racy ride down the 3 km to the lake on clear blue water almost without catching a single eddy. With a big smile on our faces we got back in our car and continued our journey all the way up to the national park of the Rio Claro.

After haveing a long bruch the next morning and 35 degrees we realized again that our boats were still not able to walk their way to the put in thereselves so we didn´t have another chance than carriying them all the way up to the put in of the 22 Saltos section. About an hour later we lowered our boats down to the water. Right after the first few meters all the strain was forgotten – the river meanders through an amazing volcano rock canyon back to the camp.

To complete one of those perfect paddeling, the restaurant beside our camp served us delicious meat to prepare us for the upcoming feats the next days. With alternatings in the crew we paddeled the 22 Saltos section again, the Entresaltos sectin and the Siete Tazas before we returned to the south towards the Rio Nuble.

As beautiful as the Rio Claro was, as soon as I realized that the Nuble is one of those rivers where you have enough water under your boat I was pleased as Punch.

Coming back to Pucon I put my project to hike up the volcano after one year into practice. Felt like equipped for a Mount Everest expedition groups of tourists struggled themselves uphill at snail´s pace. Once at the top one got rewarded with an awesome view and a rapid sliding descent

To be continued – Chile part 2: From Pucon to the Rio Negro