Chile part 2: From Pucon to the Rio Negro

Meanwhile we had already December in Chile and there was another change in our crew. John had to fly back home and the two German young guns Daniel and Paul were ready for their first Chilean experience. After giving them our traditional warm up program in Pucon we packed or car to head south to the Rio Fuy.

None of our group had been there before, so it took us a while to figure out the put in, take out and ways though the rapids. Right from the start the river presented itself very pushy and as soon as we reached the famous 6 meter drop we realized that there was no way of running the falls because of the massive recycles of the following drops.

We noticed that we probably put on at a very high waterlevel for the upper section and decided to go for the lower section the next day before heading further south.

After a short site seeing seeing stop at the Saltos Petrohue and a long dirt- roadtrip along the fjord passing Cochamo we reached the Rio Negro valley late that night.

Having wet gear and a cloudy sky the next morning didn´t cause much motivation for all of us and we had to push ourselves unwilling to the put in. Once we got there the Chilean sun gave its best, burned away the clouds and made our day as nice as it could get

For two of our group – Ali und Thilo – it was time to make their way back to Pucon.

But before they were allowed to go back to Germany we wanted to check out the Golgol and the Nilahue. But sometimes things turn out different than expected. The in June errupted volcano Puyehue was still throwing out a lot of ash and transformed both rivers in dirty brown mud with a lot of pumice rocks floating of top. None of us felt like running one of them and the decision to continue to Pucon by the way was fast and consentaneous taken.

Pucon still offered us some Park-and-Hucks like the Coilaco waterfall, the 23 meter drop of the middle palguin and the Salto Palguin for the brave ones. Waterlevels were droppiung more and more.

So after some warm up runs with our newcomer Michi Motz and some photo sessions we prepared our departure to the Futa and said goodbye to Pucon for 2011 with the Palguin fest and Boater X…

 

To be continued – Chile part 3: Futa and Baker