Rafting with a Legend

Futaleufu, Chile

  

Home for the next few days...!

 

After a quick and seamless border crossing between Trevelin, Argentina and Futaleufu, Chile, we arrived at our final destination...Futaleufu Explore. Standing outside a bright blue older rustic house with a wonder van parked in front was Josh Lowry, a man who we would get to know just a bit over the next four days. Wondering about how everything would turn out, Dave and I counted it as an adventure and told ourselves that we´d take it one day at a time, seeing how everything panned out on the water. We were scheduled to leave at around noon that day for the water. We left around 1:30 ish after safety boaters began to show up and gear was loaded.

The scenery around Futaleufu is breathtaking and Dave and I just kept on looking around, wondering how it could get any better. The first day of rafting we were in a raft with Oliver the German Polo Player and Daniel the high school student (he was recruited for more power and weight in the raft). Oliver was definitely a high roller and was not shy about it. A German by birth, Oliver married a Colombian woman and has lived in Spain for the last 25 years working in the casino gaming industry and playing polo in Barcelona and Buenos Aires. We had a good time getting to know him and hearing some far fetched stories of near-death rafting experience in Borneo and days flying with the Russian Acrobatic Air Force. Interesting dude. At this point, we didn´t have a solid read on Josh, but he seemed like a veteran of the river with a LOT of experience, few words, and just amazing laughs.

Putting on the river around 3pm when all was said and done, we were in for it. The first class IV rapid called entrada lasts an entire kilometer and is tiring for a warmup! The water is huge on the Futaleufu. I mean, MASSIVE. Even more lucky for us, we arrived before peak season so the water level was high. Needless to say, we had an absolutely rocking time for our first day on the water. Nearly flipping once by being surfed pretty hard in a big hole, we managed to power through and come out clean. Lots of swirly eddies and sneak lines later, we were through with the biggest of the rapids. I swear that our raft was very close to vertical on the waves of Toro rapid (bull) and we were in a 16ft boat. Big waves! This stretch is 8km long and has 16 rapids class III to IV+. Sweet! Typically the rafts can run two class V rapids at the end of the Bridge to Bridge section but the water level was too high and compromising. I guess we´ll just have to go back and check them out during the heart of summer another time!

Adam, a young guy from England relocated for the summer to Futaleufu to safety boat and learn more about the rivers in Chile. A mere 19, he was a great guy to hang out with and one hell of a kayaker. After chatting with Adam for a while, we began to realize that Josh was a legend of kayaking and had made a gnarly first descent on a remote river in Chile. Josh was also a guide on the Grand Canyon for about 10 or 15 years and also worked on the Middle Fork of the Salmon in Idaho for a substantial amount of his life. None of us knew exactly how old Josh was, but I would guess in his early 60s. Unreal. Dave and I camped in his backyard for the next 4 nights and cooked in his rustic kitchen on a wood stove. I will never forget passing those nights drinking excellent boxed wine and eating pasta and soup concoctions in the kitchen and telling stories and laughing the night away with Josh and Adam.

Day 2 Put-In

 

Day two was another exciting day out on the river because we had two class V portages and some fun class IV rapids. You will notice from the pictures that Dave and I have awesome matching gear including purple splash tops and faded red/pink helmets. Again, continually amazed by the power of the river, we watched the safety boaters and Josh finagle the boats down the two rapids called “Zeta” and “Throne Room.” Zeta means “Z” in Spanish and rapid zig-zags down a deep and skinny canyon with incredible volume and power. Throne Room is just rather beastly looking with a huge rock and pour over at the end, making the throne. Luckily, we were able to watch Adam kayak flawlessly through the rapid…awesome! The majorly big rapid of the day that we ran was called Chaos, a rather fitting name. Daniel fell out of the boat but hung on for dear life. Nice job dude!

 

The entry rapid before Zeta.

Daniel and Dave taking a look at Zeta Rapid, our first class V portage

 Dave´s Style Points...

Throne Room 2nd class V portage

Day three didn´t quite materialize as planned because one of our safety boaters got measles…random! We couldn´t go out on the water because we didn´t have two safety kayakers and a safety cataraft. Dave and I decided that we´d take the hardshell kayaks out on the Rio Espolón which is a mellow class II+ river. Dave did so well on his first day and played it super cool besides the fact that he said he was scared to death to tip over while going through the rapids. He tipped over just once in a small rapid and hung around long enough to get a T rescue from Josh. Awesome job Dave! As for me, I was having a really “off” day and ended up swimming twice when trying to ferry across a swirly eddy line and surf wave. My rolls were not happening like they usually do and I slightly dislocated my shoulder a few times after several attempts. Yuck. It was still a beautiful day and a really fun experience to be out with Dave in kayaks. Gonna make sure that we get out in Oregon when we get back!

 

Dave, right before the inevitable...don´t get me wrong, I had plenty of issues also.  They just weren´t captured on film :)

Day four materialized and we were able to get back out on the river in our rafts. We had two paddlers join us and we made a fun and slightly interesting group! …Diana from Connecticut was an upbeat and really fun girl on a solo trip through Chile and Chris from Michigan was a mechanical engineer and a bit…well….let´s just say interesting. We had some great safety boaters with us that day and the weather was absolutely stunning! This would be our most exciting day out on the river, running Terminator rapid and the Bridge to Bridge for the second time. Shortly after a quick portage of the entrance to Terminator, we hopped in the boats to finish the last kilometer(+) of Terminator with huge hydraulics and monster waves. Upon entering a massive hole, it dawned on Dave and I…I wonder why Josh is taking us into this? Before we knew it, we were ALL in the water (guide included) but luckily ended up very close to the boat. Chris and Diana ended up in the raft and Dave and I got picked up by the cataraft and climbed on the back. We still had the end of the rapid and the ramous “Himalaya” waves coming up. The cataraft safety boater quickly spun the raft backward and told us to hold on tight as we were absolutely dominated by these waves. IT WAS AWESOME! We hit the waves backward because we would have 100% flipped by hitting it straight on (all our weight was in the back of the boat).

The Bridge to Bridge section was just as awesome as it was the first day, but we basically paddled through the entire section because Chris needed to make his bus connection by 7pm. We had one close call when Josh took us barreling into a hole backward in a rapid called Wiña. Again, I think that our boat was near vertical and Dave and I were literally staring straight at the water below us. It´s likely a miracle that we didn´t flip. The look on Adam´s face after we were through it was hysterical and concerning ;)

The Futaleufu was awesome. We were so happy to have experienced it how we did, especially being alongside the people we boated with. Dave learned to kayak from a legend in the sport. We will be back, there´s no doubt. It was hard to leave Chile and we thought about going back in, the logistics of the area are tricky and we don´t have much more time. For example, we had to hitchhike across the border because there are only busses running twice a week.

 

 Finding the sneak route in Mondaca Rapid

Well, off to Los Alerces National Park on the Argentine side where we will rent a car and explore the National Park for a few days. Excited to have some transportation freedom!

The team...Adam, Josh, Dave, Liz