Southeast Steep Creeking in Chile... Rio Nevado! 

If you refer to yourself as a creek boater and haven’t heard about this river there is something wrong with you. It’s a little piece of Southeastern steep creeking tucked into the quintessential kayak destination of Pucon Chile. Multiple 20 footers, a bed rock slide, and enough mank to keep Mark Taylor and Aeon Russo smiling.

Aeon Russo taking flight

Aeon Russo probing the right side of wall drop

Nevado from Chris Baer on Vimeo.

Mark Taylor falling into? Crack drop!

Aeon Russo, Dulce Amor

Aeon Russo in the quintessential Chilean gorge

Nevado

Casey Tango putting down the landing gear at the Crack drop.

Another day in paradise... the Rio Nevado just out side the town of Pucon, Chile is an absolute gem. 

The doomsicle getting chopped up, to help weld Casey's boat.

Before we could paddle the Nevado, it was time to fix Casey's boat. The twelve inch crack was getting bigger by the day. We found a donor boat at Dave Hughes's Pucon Kayak Hostel. Oddly enough the donor boat was previously owned by two of my friends. Casey fired up the chain saw and we went into repair mode. An hour later Casey's boat was looking good and it was time to go kayaking.

Gordon Klco flying through the Crack drop.

This year Pucon is dealing with rather low water. I feel lucky that Casey Tango, Gordon Klco and I were able to catch a good water level on our run of this amazing creek.

Gordon Klco getting his nose down at Dulce Amor.

The Nevado might be one of the best, and most well rounded creeks I have ever gotten the chance to paddle. The rock is extremely polished granite covered in slick green moss, the water is crystal clear, there is a fun slide with a rowdy step-up jump in the middle of it, and three different twenty foot drops!

Casey Tango looking for the auto boof.

The day was going super smooth. Casey's boat floated. All of us had fun lines on the big drops until... The second to the last drop. I gave Gordon some horrible Chilean-style beta, and he tried his best to follow my verbal directions over a dry, two foot tall rock. Gordon fell off of the back of the rock and into the hole. He did an amazing stern pirouette and then landed on his head. The right wall denied his first roll attempt and he started washing down stream. Next, a well placed branch slipped between Gordon and his paddle. The fight was on. A couple more unsuccessful roll attempts  and an undercut rock sealed the deal. Gordon jumped out of his boat and was quickly swept into the next sieve pile of a rapid. Which happens to be the only ugly rapid on the entire section. To my amazement, only seconds later, Gordon was able to scramble on top of a rock in the middle of the junky rapid. The clean up went well, except for Gordon's missing paddle, and we were all excited to see the first booty beer of the trip get consumed. Two days later on our next trip down the Rio Nevado, his paddle reemerged just feet away from the swim location.

Photo and write up by Chris Baer

Two months in south America

The end of Nevado... again, and a great way to mark two months of vacation.

So the rain has ended and the water levels once again are dropping out, this gave us a great opportunity to try to do the total Nevado. We put on the upper with low flows,


Bryan Kirk deep in the Nevado


Bryan with a huge boof


Jacob the crazy Russian

Once we arrived at the Demshitz drop it was on. Almost the hole crew fired up this ugly drop, with a verity of success.


Bryan with one of the cleaner lines

Keegan Grady stuck the must make roll of his life





Amazingly enough Keegan was totally ok after this ridiculous line

The group then headed into the next gorge and on the second drop Alex Perrett missed his boof and injured his ankle bad. That was enough of that and the group hiked limped and carried each other out of the gorge.

Onward and upward... rather downward, marking the two month mark of my trip it was time to huck the middle Palgine again.


Keegan in the portage

There was a verity of lines most notable Bryan Kirk getting violently ejected out of his kayak. The results of the day where grim, 2 out of 6 people stayed in there boats, there was Bryan's ejection, 2 blown skirts, and my flailed hand roll to swim.


Jacob tucking, to skirt implosion


The Spaniard with a beautiful line

All said and done the crew is still smiling and excited for the next river.

Chris Baer, always between swims.

The missing shots

So here is an update filled with some of my friends and paddling partners shots


all the boys above the middle Palugin


AJ got this photo looking up at the Turbio


another AJ shot looks so cool with the blue flowers


Chris Baer on the first slide of the Turbio


Chris Baer in Wall drop on the Navado


Isaac lounging after a nasty hike out


Hiking threw the fields on the Florian


Bryan Kirk launching into the sun


Isaac getting her up on edge in the Nevado


Bryan with an absolutely beautiful view up the Turbio


Chris Baer on the first slide of the Nevado


AJ styling the last drop of the Turbio



AJ on the first slide of the Turbio


Chris Baer on the last drop of the Turbio


Chris Baer at the top of the Turbio


Adam Bixby in the Bombay gin blue water


AJ boffing on the Palguin


Wave Sport shot of the day


AJ with a huge boof


AJ boofing into the light

So that was a pretty simple update but there is some great photos in there, enjoy and I will give you all a story again soon.

Chris Baer a little sore from sending a 70 footer and signing off from Pucon.

2010

2010, well there is still no flying cars, but there is some pretty insane kayaking happening down here in Chile.


The new rental rig loaded down, if they only knew

The new year has brought us a lot of rain and that means levels jumped up again and I was able to get on a couple runs that just don't run this late in the year.

The Desahue came back up, and we were able to get some laps on it.


Chris Baer running the bottom drop right


AJ on one of the countless drops


Bryan Kirk routing the left side


AJ boofing the lead in drop

The Turbio needs a lot of moisture to run and with all of the rain it snapped up into a runnable level for two days. Bryan Kirk, AJ, and I (Chris Baer) managed to catch this little gem at a great level. The Turbio has an interesting river characteristic, the rock is really sharp and manky but the ledges are really clean. This in turn means every good drop is backed up by a lot of junk rock, No rolling and you have to really boof everything.


The Turbio park and huck location, the flowers are amazing


the obligatory Wave Sport shot


Bryan Kirk on the top slide


AJ hitting his boof after the first slide


AJ sending another backed up ledge


AJ in the midst of the mank


Kirk.... maybe over boofing?

The Rio Nevado also came back in with the rain, the Nevado is hands down my favorite run in the Pucon area. You start out with a fun slide, a blind 15 footer, a crack drop into a hall way, a hard ferry over a couple sticky holes, a quick portage, and it all ends with a great wall boof and two tricky junk rapids. That is just too much good stuff for a mile and a half run


Bryan Kirk on the put in slide


Brayn with a beautiful line on wall drop

So I have been in Pucon for about a month and I was wanting to catch a new run, so we ( Bryan Kirk, AJ, Isaac Levinson, Jared Seiler, and I ) all hoped in the little rental truck and took off for a road trip. We arrived at the Florian relatively late in the day, got suited up and hiked to the put in. Jared was our "guide" and when he saw the water level his first remarks where "well that will make the big one softer", it was high the gauge under the put in bridge was reading 55 cm. This did not stop us, we put on and cranked out a couple upper rapids


Bryan on one of the top drops

Next up was a nasty looking rapid, this rapid had a 10 foot spout that looked like it was guarantied to back ender you. The landing zone of the spout is a crack with more water from the right wall falling on you, and all of this is supper boily. To top off the drop there is a 15 footer that mainly lands on rock. We all walked river left up into the jungle got lost, tangled in veins, and eventually made it back to the water level.


the nasty rapid

Back on the water we were greeted with a fun slide and then the 50 footer.


Isaac on the slide above the 50 footer

The 50 footer is not clean, you ferry all the way across the lip break a lateral and try to keep just a tiny amount of momentum towards the right. If you don't carry the momentum or the lateral turns you, you go half way down reconnect in the drop and end up boofing a 50 footer. If you drive too far right you hit the wall get flipped and, well lets not talk about flipping. The whole team had good lines a couple of us caught some of the reconnect but everyone dealt with it well.


Isaac in the middle of the 50 footer


Bryan Kirk styling his line


The posy at the bottom of the 50 footer

The river continues after this into a couple ugly rapids that are usually portaged, so we decided to get out of the river at this time as the light was quickly fading. We got out on river right, and scrambled up an almost vertical slick as shit trail. Once at the top we meandered threw a couple beautiful fields and eventually returned to the river way down stream.


taking a break on the edge of one of the fields


Jared hiking into the sun

Once at the river we ferried across and then hiked threw another field. Jumped some more barbed wire fences and found the road. Jared hiked back up grabbed the truck and we all sat down and had a beer right there in the road, everyone was exhausted from our adventure. Moral of the story the Florian is a great run if you are looking for a park and hike, and portage, and huck, and hike, and hike, and ferry, and hike. All joking aside I would definitely run the Florian again, maybe next year.


Checking out a rainbow on the way home

Chris Baer signing off, back in Pucon