by Tyler Curtis

It was the time of year again to pack up the paddling gear and jump a plane to the paddling paradise of Chile. It would be my 11th season in a row traveling to this amazing country and with my vast knowledge of rivers and recently released Guide Book ‘Whitewater Chile’ the possibilities for great whitewater was endless. A large number of paddlers headed for Chile this winter and the rivers were relentless in delivering punishment. The swim count was out of control and broken paddles became the normal everyday occurrence. A ton of rain fell in Chile this season making for high water levels and epic creeking!

I arrived at the Santiago airport to meet with my favourite paddling partner Logan Grayling who I would be kickin it with for the trip. Chilean buddy Peletroke cruised to the airport to load us into his rig and immediately head south to the hucking capital of Pucon! Our first day on the water was the Rio Nevados, which has to be my favourite run in the area! A perfect water level and sunshine day pumped us up for what would look to be a great Freeboat kayaking trip..

Day two we wanted to turn up the volume and go stout. We packed in some breakfast and headed for the Palguin for a date with the Palguin Medio waterfall. So excited! This would be my second visit to this perfect waterfall and my energy was huge! A quick look at the 23 meter waterfall was all I needed to fire it up. I slide into the water and paddled myself to the lip and rode the shit proud. Landing at the bottom my skirt blew off and I became another number in the growing swim count!

Logan cruised next with a similar story. His paddle was ripped from his hands and he also became another swim statistic. What a great start. Day two and we both claim swims..

Days three we headed for a quick run of the Upper Palguin. Rallied the portage a few times for fun! Always an interesting run, never the same and never clean.

Stay tuned for more..

Tyler Curtis

This entry was posted on Monday, February 1st, 2010 at 12:51 pm and is filed under Team News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.