The Paddler ezine WW kayak collection 2013 | Page 109

later, of which four was on pretty continuous
quality whitewater we made it back to the truck
at the take out bridge, where the river finally
bends back. This left us just enough time to head
to catch our ferry at 6am the next day. The whole
crew shared high levels of winning.
Our next stop was scheduled to be the Rio
Petrohue, which the guide book had lead us to
believe was a fun class 4 with a clean 30ft drop at
the end. It did mention that park rangers were
not super keen with people running the drop
but we decided to risk it. Needless to say upon
arrival at the waterfall after some ok paddling,
the park rangers instantly shut us down and
kicked us off the river before we could run it. But
they did kindly drive our shuttle for us so maybe
it’s not so bad.

Not too downtrodden we headed to our next
destination the Rio Golgol. Sunny weather and
high water levels greeted us, but we were
confident in a good day paddling the following
day. We headed to the put in drop called Los
Novios in the morning. I fired the fun 10ft boof
first but a momentary lapse in concentration saw
me get pinned to a tree on the easy grade 2 run
out. Wookie Joe came hastily to the rescue to pull
me off. However, this was less than ideal and
caused me to flip under the tree and through my
paddles, which got wedged between me and the
tree. Luckily it all came good and I didn’t swim or
get hurt. Pundy went next, styled the drop and
avoided the tree. Although I was keen to get my
spare paddle and carry on not every one else
was so the group decision was to walk away.

This river is definitely one I will be
back for in the future.

ThePaddler 109