On Derek's last annual White-Water Canoe Trip (August 2009) I got a chance to run a solo canoe in some class I and II rapids. This was fun so I decided to get a bit more white-water in yet this year. Derek mentioned that the Futaleufu river is one of the best in the world for kayaking. It being cold and wintry in Canada this sounded great. So I booked a beginner's kayaking course with Expediciones Chile.
All pictures were taken with a cheap, water-proof, disposable camera. You can click on them for larger versions.
The trip to Chile started on Thursday, Nov 27. Just getting to southern Chile is a sit-still-and-be-transported marathon. The itinerary:
- Drive car to airport parking (1h)
- Take shuttle to airport (0.5h)
- Fly to Miami (3.5h)
- Fly overnight to Buenos Aires, Argentina (9h)
- Take taxi to national airport in Buenos Aires (1.5h)
- Fly to Bariloche, Argentina (I'm now in Patagonia) (2h)
- Taxi to hotel in Bariloche (0.5h)
- Bus ride to Esquel, Argentina (6h)
- Taxi to hotel in Trevelin, Argentina (0.5h)
- Taxi to Chile border the next morning (0.75h)
- Expediciones Chile (ExChile) truck ride to Futaleufu village (0.5h)
- Expediciones Chile (ExChile) truck ride to Campo Tres Monjas (0.75h)
Buenos Aires is a big city of about 11 million people. It is closer in style to a European city than a North American one. The cars are compact Fiats, Renaults, Citroens and all manner of imports (including North America), the lanes are narrow, and the drivers are nutters. I only saw one minivan in all of Argentina. The residences are typically very small. It very much reminded me of grimier version of Barcelona. Many other things have carried over from Spain, most obviously that shops are closed from 1pm to 4pm, or don't open until 4pm. The good restaurants don't open until 9pm and it works best to head out for dinner at 10pm. One difference I found strange is that "tapas" don't exist by that name in Argentina and Chile. The concept is still somewhat there but they just say "esnack". I was told that placing the letter "e" in front of English words that start with "s" is a common and acceptable practice.
A picture of an old church in Buenos Aires:
Bariloche is a very beautiful alpen town that is clearly geared toward the ski season. In the sunny afternoon I was there I wound up sitting at a sidewalk tabke, enjoying a delicious bottle of Quilmes Norte and talking with an international stock broker for a while. The snow-covered Andes were off in the distance...
Same spot, looking back at Bariloche:
The hotel in Bariloche was nice enough but some snapper-headed plumber put the toilet underneath the sink. A very efficient use of space, no doubt, but you could hardly sit on the throne.
As you travel from Bariloche to Futaleufu you get progressively deeper into the Andes mountains. The scenery is very beautiful, very similar to the driving into the Rocky Mountains from Calgary to Golden, with undefinable subtle differences. Trevelin and Esquel pop back out of the mountains into a very dry area similar to the western side of the Mojave desert. The nice hotel I stayed at in Trevelin (with well-designed bathroom):
The picture doesn't betray how dry and desert-like it feels in Trevelin. But the old truck with no rust is an indication. Said truck is just a sample of the very old vehicles most Trevelinians drive daily. Who knows where they get parts from. The funny part was watching the kids drive by in '80s Peugots with crappy paint jobs, poorly tinted windows and loud exhausts. Some things don't change.
My experience with buses in Argentina is that they arrive very late and take longer than expected to get anywhere. On the way back on was minutes away from making my flight from Bariloche to Buenos Aires.
By the way, Futaleufu is pronounced foo-ta-lay-oo-FOO, with the emphasis on the final sylable. If you don't say it right the locals make fun of you.
If you review the trip you'll guess that by the time I got to camp I had a severe amount of pent-up energy! However I was now thinking mostly about the weather.
As we drove into Futaleufu village it was cold and raining. The rain was almost turning into snow and it must have been about zero degrees celsius. Being a cirulation-in-extremeties-challenged person I must stay that I was getting concerned about the viability of kayaking on a cold river in the snow. Mentally reviewing the gear I brought I was hoping I'd brought enough warm layers, and that my neoprene shorts be thick enough to keep my ass from freezing. I turns out that I did have enough of the right gear, barely. The absolute life-saver was my drytop. For those that don't know, this is essentially a water-sealed jacket. You can literally dive underwater with it on and not get your top wet. Underneath you can wear layers of dry clothing that keep you warm. I was vacilating about spending the money on a drytop before I left but if I hadn't I would never have been able to bear roll practice for the first three days.
These first three days were cloudy, rainy, windy and cold. After an hour of roll practice both my guide and I needed to paddle around the lagoon to warm up. I didn't really mind though, I was having fun. After getting off the river and into dry clothes the cold wasn't a bother at all. In fact it felt refreshing and was very nice for sleeping. I'd brought my medium-warmth sleeping bag and it was great, perhaps even a bit too warm.
On the fourth the weather started to turn for the better, half sunny and half cloudy. The three days after that were beautifully sunny.
Many sources on the web had indicated that the sun is intense in Patagonia. The depletion of the ozone layer results in much more UV radiation. I learned that this is very true. The second day was a full day on the river but it was thoroughly cloudy so I didn't think to put on sunscreen. I was surprised when my face was sunburnt quite thoroughly. The sunburn didn't bother me much but I did wear sunscreen for the rest of the trip. I only had to worry about my face given all the gear I was wearing.
This is the gear I wore while on the river. It did the trick although a full drysuit would really be the way to go.
- drytop
- a thick splash shirt and a capilene-4 layer underneath the dry top
- a farmer-john style wetsuit
- river booties with neoprene socks underneath
- neoprene paddling gloves
- helmet, lifejacket, noseclips
The real bonus was that the camp had a wood-stove fired suana that they fired up on the cold days. I didn't actually sit in the sauna but I left my gear in it overnight so it would dry out. Even on warm days putting on cold, wet gear isn't so much fun. Note that with the farmer-john wetsuit the water seeps up the wetsuit under the drytop and gets the layers underneath a bit wet. How wet depends on how much time you spend upside-down in your kayak. Kayak students get to enjoy quite a bit of time in this position so it's important that your layers aren't cotton! You want them as dry as possible the next you put them on!
As I mentioned I had a lot of energy when I first arrived at camp. Which was great since we almost immediately got geared up and drove out to the "secret lagoon". The secret lagoon is a pool off of the Espolon river, which flows into the Futaleufu river. The lagoon, like all the rivers in the area has a beautiful turqoise hue. This actually isn't normal, it is due to all the ash that came down from the Chaitén volcano eruption in May 2008. The ash covered everything and it is still in the process of being washed out. The ash, though grey, gives the rivers their beautiful turqoise colour.
In the above picture you can see a bit of the beautiful view from the lagoon. There are at least six waterfalls on the side of the mountain behind me. A nice spot for roll practice. Notice the gray sand around the lagoon. It's not sand - it's ash.
The first day I at the lagoon I learned something very important, namely that my legs do not enjoy being stuffed into a kayak. Specifically the nerves that run down the back-outside of the leg twinge every time I get in or out or sweep my torso from side-to-side (as is done in a C-to-C roll). At first this was mostly just annoying but every day it got worse. Within 30 minutes of being in the kayak my feet would go numb. I opted for a larger (harder to roll) kayak so that I could pull my knees from out of the braces whenever I needed a break. Despite the issue I had a lot of fun. But I'm fairly certain that this will be my last more-than-one-day-in-a-kayak trip. As I'm writing this (Dec 7) the bottom of my right foot is still numb.
The first day we began roll practice. For those that don't know, a "roll" is the set of motions that right a capsized kayak. So you basically flip your kayak over on purpose and then try to roll it back up. This is hard. However, if you fail to roll up you generally don't drown. You bang on the bottom of the kayak (which is facing toward the sky) and the guide rolls it over for you. The more you tip your guide the faster he'll roll you over (kidding). On the river he won't roll you over but if you thump on your kayak he'll ram your kayak into yours so that you can grab onto the front of his and pull (roll) yourself up (a "T-rescue"). If all else fails you can pull your skirt loop, clamber out of your kayak, and play a game of dodge the rocks, whirlpools and hydraulic waves ("holes").
The roll that we practice is the C-to-C roll. Every morning we spend in roll and technique practice. I complete many successful rolls and many more unsuccessful ones. I never did manage to complete a roll while actually on the river. On the plus side my guide and I got very good at T-rescues.
For kayak enthusiastics the boat I used was a Liquidlogic Remix.
In the afternoons we run down the Upper Espolon and practice eddying in and out and ferrying. At this point it's worth noting that the Espolon is a fast-flowng river with a lot of volume. It's also the beginning of spring (I'm the first kayaker of the season) and it has been raining a lot. The water is high and really cruising along. I mean really cruising along. This good because I get extra T-rescue practice whenever I fail to anticipate just how fast the water is moving while peeling out. An important part of eddying in or out is leaning a) the appropriate amount, b) in the right direction. Failure to get either of these right means you very quickly head downstream in the upside-down position. Note that you'll still want to hang onto your paddle in this position in case you come up in a wave-train or heading toward a rock, strainer or hydraulic. I can't say I really get the hang of ferrying nicely across this river. Lose your angle and it's a lot of work to get it back. Even smaller waves can briefly surf you. But I have fun trying.
The takout spot for the Upper Espolon is on the opposite side of the river in the next picture.
On the fourth day I ask that instead of running down the Espolon we take a hike up the mighty Futaleufu river ("Futa" for short) to the Terminator rapid. Time being a bit short the guide suggests Throne Room instead.
On the way we come across a class IV rapid called Tres Islas (Three Islands). The whirlpools look hairy:
Next we come to Throne Room. You can read about it here. The main feature of this crazy rapid is the Throne, a large rock near the end that divides the water into a good run on river-left, and the Toaster on river-right. The Toaster is not a good place to be my guide assures me. Anyway as the pictures below indicate the Throne was almost completely washed over when I was there. A huge pillow was constantly flowing over the rock. My guide was saying he had never seen the river so high. Three pics of Throne Room, from the very long tongue in, the middle section and the Throne:
In the last picture you can sort of see the Throne. It's just to the bottom-left of center. A huge pillow lies before it.
Throne Room, from a distance (looks small but view this image for the scale):
On the way back, crossing a bridge over the Futaleufu, I snap another picture of the end of Wild Mile:
The opposite side of the bridge shows the beginning of School House.
The second last day we run down the whole Espolon. The Lower section is class III/III+. There are plenty of wave-trains to run through and lots of rocks to plan a line through. One tricky set of rapids we scout in advance. This wound up being a good idea because the river had changed quite a bit from last year. The line we planned in this rapid was quite a bit of fun. We weaved through a boulder garden (still cruising along) and then took a narrow split-off (to the right) from the main flow. We had to run from far right of the main to far right of the split-off. This is tricky because as rivers go around a bend the current pushes you to the outside, in this case the left. The left side was bad news for the narrow split-off due to rocks and a hole. Happily we ran this section perfectly. In fact the whole Lower Espolon went well, I didn't capsize once. At the takeout:
Notice how the full-on sun white-washes everything. Without sunglasses that's kind of how they look when you're there too.
Normally a beginner kayaker does not get to paddle the mighty Futaleufu. However at the end of the week a couple of other experienced guides showed up. Somehow the idea of running the School House rapid came up. I expressed interest for the sake of glory, "I paddled the Futa!". The guides agreed that with all three of them running safety I could run School House. It's safe to say that School House schooled me.
We started on the bottom of the Azul river, just before the confluence with the Futa (picture taken on a very cloudy day - still looks bright):
We ferried out to the center of the Futa. We cruised through some big waves and everything thing was cool. Then we started eddying in and out to scope out the section. Twice I capsized while peeling out in the crazy current. The water was high and really moving. Once more I went down when a good-sized whirlpool jerked me to the side with a crazy amount of force. I came up out of that T-resuce into a wave-train of the largest standing waves I'd ever been in, around 5 feet from tough to crest. I screwed up the finally ferry and wound up going past the take out point. So we had quite a hike back. But the run was awesome! And it seems I can salvage my ego a bit given that one of the guides wound up capsizing, failing to roll, and taking a swim (another guide rescued his kayak). Thanks to Kelly, my guide, for sticking close to me and T-resucing me as needed. Some more pictures of School House, taken from camp:
The last one shows the Futa pillowing water over a large boulder and gives you some idea of how fast the water is moving. The boulder is at least a couple feet above the water levels to its right.
Campo Tres Monjas is Spanish for Camp of the Three Nuns. It gets it's name from one of the nearby mountains that looks like:
When it's not cloudy it looks like:
That's the Futaleufu in the foreground, the beginning of School House. Impossible for the picture to describe how fast the water is moving.
My lodging for my stay at camp was a nice tent with a big fly that kept the sides dry. They offered me a cabin but the tent was dry and I was comfortable.
I was surprised to learn that I was the only customer at the camp. I hadn't realized that I was so early in the season. Also, with the economic recession there have been significantly fewer bookings. The good part of this is that I hung around in the main kitchen with the camp crew and got to learn a lot of Spanish. Turns out pronounciation is different from Madrid, more like Barcelona. And Argentinian is different from Chilean. Anyway I now have a good start on conversation Spanish. Bueno.
The food was great. The cook, Evelyn, was away for the first couple days but I hardly noticed. Rosie and Larena made excellent breakfasts, lunches and dinners. All the found was Chilean and featured a Chilean wine at dinner. On Wednesday an entire lamb was heavily seasoned and roasted by an open fire. It was absolutely delicious.
The camp vehicles were the weirdest Kia trucks you can imagine. Some sort of cross between a semi-truck and a Volkswagon Type 2 van. In previous years leaving camp was done by ferrying a canoe across the Azul and hopping into a truck. However the canoes had washed away so we had to hop in a truck just outside of camp and go through a maze of extremely picturesque farmer's fields and cattle gates to get to the road. With the rain these field paths became very muddy and we occasionally got the truck stuck. Everything in Patagonia is an adventure including getting in or out of camp. A picture:
After the clouds cleared up I did get my first look at the southern stars.
After I got back to my car I hopped on the 401 and immediately got stuck between a minivan going slow in the fast lane. I went to Wendy's for lunch. And came back to my snow-dusted house. I'm fully acclimitized to Canada again.
Here are some more pictures of the Azul river, from around camp:
