Beyond the Baker...journeying south in patagonia

Having achieved the goal of running the Rio Baker we loaded up and set off in search of other rivers and adventures further south.  There is probably nobody better acquainted than us with the locations of all gomerias (tyre shops) along the Carretera Austral, but fortunately other than a few punctures and a missing knut the Subaru performed superbly and safely delivered us to Villa O’Higgins, the most southern point of this famous thoroughfare. 

On the way South we stopped to paddle the roadside section of the Rio Bravo which includes 3 beautiful and entertaining canyons.  To access the river above the first canyon we put on a small roadside lake, with the most stunning mountain reflection, just before the road veers south again about 30km after the ferry crossing from Puerto Yungay.  We then scrambled through some bog, paddled across another reedy pond, a little more bog down a dry stream bed and then through the trees to the river all the time being pursued by giant horseflies.  The first canyon is super fun read and run with pushy waves and the odd hole.  If you find this a challenge it is worth taking out when you encounter the road before entering the second canyon where things get a bit more serious.

Not a bad launch spot for the Bravo Roadside Section

The second canyon will really keep you on your toes and get the adrenaline flowing (especially your first time when you don’t know what’s coming).  We portaged the landslide rapid (big landslide on RR) though there is a line for the brave ones, and also one below the box canyon with a nasty siphon and sticky hole that would definitely look nicer at lower water.  For the box canyon rapid we were relieved to have read the instructions in the Chile guidebook and followed the advice boofing just right of the rock in the centre at the bottom to avoid the rock in the landing.  The third canyon was better than expected with plenty of fun drops keeping us constantly excited for what was round the corner.  We took off the Bravo very satisfied and committed to paddle it again when we ventured back North.

Entering the most serious part of the Rio Bravo

Rory having fun in the first canyon of the Bravo

Arriving quite late in the day to O’Higgins we decided to go for a walk up the Rio Mosco to see if it would be worth a hike in and paddle down.  Aside from getting lost for a while after taking a wrong turn (always follow the markers, not necessarily the most worn path) it was an enjoyable excursion and when we reached river level after about 2hrs of walking it looked like the river had potential.  The days of sun and heat had left it with a lot of water and it resembled a steep alpine run fast-flowing with lots of boulders…not a good place to be upside-down.  Hiking back down the steep slope to the hostel I couldn’t help but think how horrible it would be to have to do this walk with a kayak on your shoulder.  We were already tired and decided to go and check out the Rios Perez and Mayer the next day, and if we were feeling highly energetic have a go at the Mosco the day after.

The Perez requires a 4x4 to access the put-in and we were a little doubtful if the good old Subey would make it so decided to hoof it.  7-8km later we collapsed on the shore of the stunning lake source (a potential access point for anyone interested in running the entire Rio Bravo), after a short rest we put on and headed straight to the action…the first drop is immediately as the river drains out of the lake.  Sebastian and I were a little nervous of the hole at the bottom and walked, regretting it after as this is pretty much all there is above the portage.  Lee styled it and Rory learnt that he should take a stroke to clear the hole after landing one of his specialty giant boofs.  The huge 20m cascade I believe is still awaiting a descent and I for one definitely didn’t fancy it.  After the portage there are a couple of fun drops before the final double-ledge which has a narrow landing at the bottom between a rock shelf and the right wall.  Again Lee was on form with the best line of the day, Rory and I ended up a bit far right and got bashes on the elbow as a result.  From there it was a float down to the bridge and a short jog to retrieve the car.

The Perez is a tributary of the Mayer and as we had driven all the way up there we figured why not bomb down the apparently mellow, meandering Mayer to tick off another section before heading back to the hostel, it was after all only 4 in the afternoon and it stays light late in Chile.  This turned out to be a BAD idea!  The deceptive Rio Mayer quickly changes its character once you leave the road flowing first into a swirly, fun class 3 canyon then dropping into a second, more serious canyon with a 5m (ish) drop into a ginormous hole (this isn’t a small-volume river) which we portaged followed by a must-run rapid which thankfully was good to go.  We should have learnt from this canyon that the river packs a punch but foolishly blindly floated into the next canyon and arrived at a horizon line which was un-portageable anywhere near river level and had another one of those huge river-wide holes that we definitely weren’t keen to run.  The only way was up to either portage or hike out and a quick scout demonstrated that a portage would be nearly impossible due to the steepness of the canyon and there being no easy way to get back down to river level.  After spending around 2hrs getting the boats about 20m up the bank we realised that unless we left the boats and started walking out we would be spending the night on the river bank.  1 ½ hours of bushwhacking later we stumbled onto the road just before dark, the only problem was that Rory was waiting at our proposed take out with the car a further 10-15k downstream.  We started trudging along the road hoping he would guess what had happened and come looking for us.  Luckily he did and we arrived back to O’Higgins for a very late dinner and a well-needed sleep.

The next day involved a 6+hrs rescue mission to retrieve the boats and we got to play with pulleys, z-drags and everything to haul them up over 200m of near-vertical canyon.  By this point we were quite tired of epic missions in Patagonia and decided to leave the Mosco for a more enthusiastic group/later trip and start heading North again.  Repeat runs on the Bravo and Baker got us our adrenaline fixes again and we started following the Carretera Austral north for new rivers that we had missed by coming south through Argentina.  A few were too low to be worth it and we got denied by the guardabosques (park rangers) for the Ventisqueros, but we did find a number of good things to paddle starting with the Rio Exploradores.

A more tranquil day on Lago General Carrera

After checking out the natural phenomenon called the Marble Cathedral located on Lago General Carrera we drove up from Puerto Rio Tranquillo to the Rio Exploradores sourced by Glacier Exploradores.  In a relatively short section this river has some big rapids and as you can imagine cold water.  I was not feeling particularly brave and after running just a small part volunteered to go and get the car whilst the other continued.  Sebastian claimed what is possibly the first descent of the biggest rapid on the section with a perfect line and the boys headed down the fast moving glacier run-off to take out with smiles.  Passing the largest city (glorified town) in Patagonia, Coyhaique, we spent a couple of days enjoying different sections on a low-water Cisnes the highlight being from the rapid ‘El Gato’ which can be seen from the Carretera down for about 7-8km of bouldery big drops.  The upper canyon section was a bit scrapey and manky at this level but it was cool to see the almost shark-size salmon chilling in the pools.

Sebastian firing up the Exploradores

Lee styling 'El Gato' on the Cisnes

Our final stop before returning to the Futaleufu was the Rio Figueroa which we decided to run as a multi-day though in the end managed to paddle the 60ish km to the lake in just one-day but decided to camp out on the lake-side all the same.  Although on the map the road up to Lago Verde appears major-ish leading to a border-crossing it is unwise to rely on hitching the shuttle for this section as you could be kept waiting for 6hrs like us or potentially longer.  The river itself was mainly fun grade 3 with one 1-2km section of Class 5 which provided sufficient entertainment and a good beating in a hole for yours truly.

About to get a beating on the Figueroa

One of the highlights of the trip for me was getting to experiment with ‘disco’ cooking, and we made many tasty treats from a giant burger to pizzas on this versatile piece of culinary apparatus. Pleased with our couple of weeks of adventures down south we returned to Futa happy to see that the river had come up to a decent level and it was time to get back in the playboat although the Universal Kayaks Fenix that I had been paddling had proved a good choice for the mission.