January 31-February 8, 2020

Whitewater Rafting and Kayaking on Rio Futaleufu, Espolon and Azul and Hiking to Obsession Lake

Just got back to Santiago from Patagonia.  I had an enriching and eventful week with a great group of people.  We spent seven days whitewater rafting and kayaking, hiking and mountain biking.  There were 10 people in our group and six employees of Earth River Expeditions guiding our trip. 

Earth River is an organization that organizes and guides whitewater rafting and kayaking trips primarily in Canada, the U.S. and South America.  Our lead guide was Kyle and he was assisted by Umberto, Cade and Teal.  Emily and Tieg were in training so assisted with whatever was needed.  Kyle, Umberto, Cade and Teal are highly knowledgeable about the Futaleufu Valley, whitewater and managing the safety of their clients.  I can’t say enough about the Earth River team.  Every person I encountered from Earth River was professional and competent.  Cade and Teal provided great color and entertainment throughout the trip. Both are in their twenties and living remarkable lives focused on the rivers in Canada, the U.S. and Chile.  Umberto is a Chilean from the Santiago area who moved to Futaleufu to live a life focused on his family while providing entertainment and joy to all those he encounters on the river.  Umberto is also a microbrewer and provided much of the beer we drank during our trip.  If you are ever in Futaleufu and in need of a beer, make sure you ask for la cerveza Umberto…you won’t be sorry.  Kyle is total pro, always taking charge and providing leadership and measured enthusiasm, but cautious to never provide a hook for the group to hang their doubts on or call his judgment or knowledge into question.  You can learn more about Earth River here: https://www.earthriver.com/.  If you have any interest in engaging in a whitewater trip, Earth River should be your partner.

The people in our group consisted of (moving from North to South, sort of) Gail from Toronto, Barb from Maryland, Elaine from Milwaukee, Dan and his son, Jay, from Oregon, Cheryl and Tom from Boulder and Christel and Keith from South Carolina.  Below is a little bit of flavor on the team members.  Gail owns and operates a 10-acre farm outside of Toronto and is very talented woman with a strong spirit and deep soul.  Barb is in computer operations, very pleasant and tries hard to engage with everyone and be a positive presence.  Elaine is a grandmother of four, is an avid climber and this was her sixth trip with Earth River.  Elaine is an amazing and special woman.  Her email address says a lot about her: adventuregma@….  She loves her cheese and her grandchildren.  I enjoyed getting to know Elaine a bit and totally appreciate our time on the raft together and around the table chatting.  Dan was on the trip as a 60th birthday gift from his son, Jay. Dan comes from a very large family and has six grandchildren. Jay is in his 30’s with three kids and is a very successful sales and marketing executive. Cheryl and Tom are recently retired from a business they started up and have turned over the operation of to one of their children.  Previously lived in Minneapolis and are avid outdoors people.  They had a summer cottage in the Boundary Waters and spent a good deal of time in Quetico Provincial Park, which I’ve been to maybe six or seven times on fishing trips with my grandfather and with Nick Schneeman, Perry Thomey, Jack Mueller and others once on a pontoon boat with too many kegs of beer and an untimely visit from a bear…a whole other story!  Tom is a talented photographer and very interesting character.  Christel and Keith live in the Low Country of South Carolina.  Christel is a beautiful southern woman with a delightful, slightly mischievous and subtly sassy personality.  Keith runs an environmental restoration engineering firm and grew up in the Baltimore area.  As a result, they are avid Ravens’ and Orioles’ fans.  Each of the team members were a pleasure to be with and I greatly enjoyed getting to know each one of them over our nine days together.     

Jan. 31

Flew from Santiago to Puerto Montt, Chile.  Met the group over dinner. 

Feb. 1

Flew from Puerto Varas to Chaiten on two small single engine planes.  Great views of the Pacific and the Andes, which hug the coast of Patagonia.  Snow-capped peaks as far as one could see with many glaciers in the distance.  Drove from Chaitan down the Carretera Austral Highway, #7, to our drop in point on the Futafeula River.  The Futafeula River is considered one of the best whitewater rafting rivers in the world with Class III, IV, V and VI whitewater.  Class III rapids are rapids with moderate, irregular waves which can swamp an open canoe. Class IV are intense and powerful rapids requiring precise boat handling in turbulent water. Strong eddies and powerful current effects can be found, particularly on large-volume rivers, which the Fu is, and risk of injury to swimmers is moderate to high.  Class V rapids are extremely long, obstructed, or very violent which expose a paddler to added risk, drops may contain large, unavoidable waves and holes or steep, congested chutes with complex, demanding routes and may continue for long distances, demanding a high level of fitness.  Class VI rapids…forget about it…you just look at them and gape at the energy mother nature can generate. 

The Fu is a pristine river with a beautiful bluish green color and crystal clear.  The Futaleufu Valley is stunning and ringed by peaks that are in the 8,000-foot range.  The area is a temperate rain forest.  The weather is very dynamic given the valley’s topography, proximity to the ocean and elevation.  What is also special is that it is so sparsely populated, and the tourism burden is almost non-existent.  It’s hard to get to and there is only one small lodge that I would characterize as high-end, expensive.  The season to be here is Dec.-Mar., when the sun shines and the temperatures are moderate.  It can get into the 40’s at night and into the 80’s during the day but is more likely in the 60’s and 70’s.  Interestingly, its latitude is about the same as Chicago’s.   

As we arrived and were getting ready to gear up, the winds picked up to about 50 mph and the rain came at us horizontally.  This led to a rather comical scene of all running to the van and then trying to gear up in wet suits, booties, gloves, helmets, etc. together in a very small, steamy space.  It was an entertaining way to get to know everyone quickly…so much for being shy about personal space and undressing and dressing in front of the group.  In the rain and wind, which had let up considerably, we got into the boats.     

We were divided into two boats with five clients to a boat and one guide.  We had Kyle as our guide and in our boat was Dan, Jay, Barb, Elaine and me.  The other boat was guided by Umberto and had Gail, Tom, Cheryl, Keith and Christel on board.  We had two safety pontoon boats manned by Cade and Teal, which always were ahead of us to catch anyone that may fall in the river and get into danger.    

Today was a training day so the guides navigated us into the easier routes down the river in the Bridge to Bridge section which consists of Class III and Class IV rapids, enabling development of coordination among the team on each boat and techniques required to keep us in the boat and safe.  That being said, all of us were challenged and exhilarated by the ride as well as wet to the bone by the time we got off the river.

That night, we stayed at a small house converted into a B&B in the town of Futaleufu.  Futaleufu is a town of 2,000-3,000 people centered around adventure tourism, which includes whitewater rafting and kayaking, fishing, mountain biking and hiking.  Accommodations are predominately B&B’s or hostels.  Got to know everyone better over a few beers and nice dinner.

Feb. 2

We packed up and then mountain biked to the Espolon River.  The picture at the start of the blog is a lake outside of Futaleufu that we passed on our bike to the river. The Espolon River flows into the Futaleufu River so is somewhat smaller with Class II and III rapids in the sections we ran.  For the Espolon, we were each provided with a one-man inflatable kayak.  The guides call them Duckies as you can see why in the pictures below.  Great day with warm weather and sunny skies.  Learned a bunch about whitewater and kayaking.

At the end of the day, we changed out of our wetsuits and then hiked to our hotel, the Uman Lodge.  Interestingly, the dog below led us almost the entire way from the river to the lodge.  

The Uman is a spectacular building, modern in design and perched up on the mountain side about 350 feet above the valley.  Below is photos of the views.  Spent the remainder of the afternoon in the hot tub and pool enjoying a bit of rest. 

Feb. 3

Rafted the Inferno Canyon section of the Futaleufu.  The Inferno Canyon section of the river is above the Bridge-to-Bridge section and is more difficult and challenging.  There are two rapids which are Class V/V+, which required portaging around and are called Zeta and Throne Room.  Below are a few pictures of Zeta. 

We stopped for lunch at Zeta and had a chance to watch and appreciate its power and beauty.  At the end of Zeta is a pool of water that is green in color (picture above) and highly aerated due to the churn in the rapid.  The pool is guarded by two rock cliffs.  Jay, Dan and I jumped the rock cliff which was about 35 feet above the water.  Below is a video I took of my jump and at the end you can see Jay’s. 

Throne Room was a long and awesome stretch of river.  In each of the portages, the guides had to float the boats down unmanned and then catch them downrapid.  While this was going on at Throne Room a group of about five kayakers ran the rapid and I got a video of the last one, which is below.  It conveys a sense of how challenging this section of the river is to run. 

We stayed at Loncanao Cottages on Lago Loncanao, a spectacular lake ringed by mountains, a picture of which is below.         

Feb. 4

We ran inflatable kayaks on the Rio Azul, which is a glacier fed river that feeds into the Fu.  The Azul is smaller, shallower and narrower than the Fu with Class III and IV rapids.  Kayaking the Azul was challenging and only one of us, Dan, didn’t end up swimming once or twice.  I swam twice which is the end of the video below.  It was an entertaining day that challenged us all and provided great laughs and excitement. 

We topped off the day with a great dinner prepared by the guides with leadership from Cade.  It was a Peruvian stir fried beef dish, lomo saltado.  Further, we enjoyed cerveza Umberto and had time to chill out, take some pictures and enjoy the Lago Loncanao. 

Feb. 5

We returned to the Bridge to Bridge section of the Fu today, but ran the more challenging sections of the river.  Great day with much more of a challenging ride.  We then moved onto the Peuma Lodge, which has a great wooden hot tub on a large deck with a fantastic view of the Andes.  The hot tub view was rated top 10 by National Geographic, supposedly.  All of us jumped into the hot tub with a cocktail/beer and enjoyed the view.   

Feb. 6

We were supposed to hike up to Obsession Lake today but due to rain in the forecast a game time audible was called and we returned to the Bridge to Bridge section of the Fu.  However, we ran beyond the Bridge to Bridge section into two Class V rapids, Mas-o-menos and Casa de Piedra.  These last two rapids provided a challenge to each of us and we lost Dan in one of them.  There is a great clip of this happening posted by Jay on YouTube. You can access it here: https://youtu.be/JSQh22IzP80.  I’m sitting in the front left of the boat and had to literally catch Barb when she was in the air headed out of the boat. 

Stayed another night at the Peuma Lodge.  This is what my view was as I woke up.

Feb. 7

We got up early and hiked out the back of Peuma Lodge up to Obsession Lake.  The hike was three miles long and 3,000-feet up.  Obsession Lake is an infrequently visited site, which the guides claim has probably had less than 1,000 visitors in total, of which almost all have been brought to the lake by them.  The Earth River team carted two inflatable kayaks and an inflatable paddle board up to the lake and stored them there.  About 180 degrees of the lake was ringed by a glacial bowl consisting of rock and snow and the other 180 degrees was open to the Futaleufu Valley.  The view of the Valley is one of the most impressive sights I have seen in my life…just spectacular and large and goes on forever!!!

We spent about three hours at the lake of which I spent about two hours taking photos. 

Cade brought along a drone and and when I have better internet access I will load one of his videos.

This afternoon we headed out to the Yelcho Lodge on Lake Yelcho.  Had a great last dinner with everyone and enjoyed a full moon over the lake.

Feb. 8

Off to the airport at Chaiten, then a flight to Peurto Montt, a layover in the summer vacation town of Puerto Varas, a flight to Santiago and back to the CasaSur Hotel in Santiago.