Rio Baker.....BIG BOY
After enjoying futafest and spending a week on the river, we dicided to go further south on the Patagonia Chilelna.
The team consisted of Two american, two belgiums, a german, a italian, Fico from Peru as a driver and my self from Chile, all with expedition experience from before, and most of us friend from time ago. The mission was to run severals rivers like:
Rio Ventisquero
Upper rio Cisnes
Rio Baker
Rio Bravo
We drove for about six hours south to get to the Rio Ventisquero Put in, two of ours team members ran it years ago, but this time it was a lot of more water going down.
Here we were ready to fire it up. Man...... this is one of the most incredible put in ever.
Put in on the lake and begind you there is a enormous glaciar hanging out from the andes and a huge waterfall coming from it and in front you can see the Pacific ocean at the end of the valley...awesome view....
The river has a good and step class V rapid until the swing bridge, after that few more class IV until the take out bridge...awesome afternoon run, time for a red wine(gato negro)
Next morning we were driving to Coyhaique and few kilometers before, our car broke down.....fuck.... and there we were stuck in Coyhaique.
We spend like 4 days in town no pla ce for boating so we decided to rent a Van, expensive shit. After two day we were on the afternoon scouting the Big Boy BAKER to run it the day after, dude that river scared me just looking it( a few week ago the river was 3.500 m3s, 1,5 meters higher and the day we ran it...who 850 m3s). We camp by the river that night, and I do not remember a quiet night on the trip.
Well next morning we split the groupfor the photo bussines, because on the river was impossible to eddy out ( you wanna be in the middle of the river all the time man, the eddy lines can make you creekboat looks like a squirtboat). So four of us ran it first and everyone hit the line,but here is the thing, the line can change in seconds, so you can see the kayak in front of you passing green and when you go a massive wave break on you, anyways...happy days for four of us so far. Later was the time for the others, everyone nice and safe. I HAVE NEVER FELT THAT SMALL ON THE WATER BEFORE. probably one of the biggest on earth.
Here is the bad thing about it. There is a megaproyect to dam the baker and the Pascua river, and we all know that this gems need to keep flowing. please help us to keep it that way , fro more info visit www.patagoniasinrepresas.com
We come back to Coyhaique that day, so the Rio Bravo will be for the next time a.s.a.p. because the also planning to dam it.
Not money enough to keep renting a car, we came back to fix our car, that took us 10 more days stuck in Coyhaique.
Here I,m back in Pucon ready for the next season in Norway
enjoy the Pics
vaya conrios
Gigo Castillo
