2 Weeks on the Futa

A nice shot of the group floating out of the canyon into a scenic valley.

After the double header on the Nilahue/Rininahue we drove to the Rio Gol Gol to check the level for a possible 3rd run of the year. It was low, really low! So we slept on it and drove over the Argentine border and spent the day in Bariloche before trying our luck on the Cascada Alerces. We knew it was a much lower flow than a month before when we ran it, but the drop has been run at every level so we went for it anyway.

The waterfall is in a Nation Park so when we entered the park rangers told us we were unable to put on any section of the river so we thought about our options after fighting with him for an hour or so. We walked down to the falls at mid-night and contiplated a moon light huck of this monster 45 footer, but in the end decided against that idea. After that failure we were south bound to the world renound big water play ground of the Rio Futaleufu.

Thanks to Nate Mack for putting us up in his beautiful hostel in the nice town of Futa, if your ever kayaking down here you must look him up and stay in his backpackers lodge, truley amazing. While we were in town we did frequent runs down the Inferno canyon featuring many sections with water flowing over rocks, making waves!!! Yea!!! Many good amigos were in Futa so the party scene was pumping for this little village.

Jared Seiler on one of many runs down the Entrada rapid of the Inferno Canyon.

Me running Zeta. This is the most notorious rapid on the Futa. Jared is behind me in the eddy, ready to clean up his mess!

Me out in the middle of the Terminator. I ran the middle line 3 times, it has to be the best/hardest rapid on the entire river.


This is the newest drop of the Futa named Dynamite, due to the blasting of a new road that made this monster hole.

Once we were through with the little town and wanted to move lower down on the river we packed up and headed to the Cara del Indio camping. I spent like a week and a half down there doing many run on the bridge to bridge section with great play, including the wave Pistola. It was a bit low for it, but it still gave up some nice tricks. One day after a rain storm it did come up to its normal amazing level, but fropped after the sky ran dry.

The infamous Josh Bechtel joined us on a big day out. Leading the way on Zeta!

I stayed with WCKA and had a nice time learning new ways of cooking from my good friends Isreal. Overall it was a great chill time down on this river and as soon as Rodrigo, Ema, Severin, and Lj showed up we rigged the Kayakpucon van picked up a man from Peru named Juanito and took off for the far south on the hunt for the Epicocity.

Later E.G.