Manana Nilahue

We arrived the night before and decided at the time we should camp on the side of the road at the outlook for this huge falls.... After a few hours of tomando RonCola it seemed like a good idea.

In the morning we had no breakfast because someone broken all the eggs, and we used up all the gas for the stove the day before as well. There was nothing else to do other than huck the stout straight away. We felt marginal from the night events, but knew "When you're down run the Brown."

Rodrigo bombing first.... this was some high ass water for this drop it made it very exciting.

Coming down a bit further still holding some good angle to stay away from the cave on the left.

Jared and I followed Rodrigo and had good lines slightly boofing the rampping falls. I got my paddle ripped out of my hands, but found it in the pool to make a fast roll with. Then camp old David Fussili.....

Dave Fusilli's first ever run down this beast... impressive to say the least.

Hahahahaha FrankenBrine!!!!! He was all good though.

It was an exciting session on the Nilahue for sure. We all got kinda punished in some fashion, this drop means business when there is some good juice coming down off of Lj's lip. Run # 4 for old E.G. off this big boy....

Boats all loaded up ready to head up north to the Rio Fuy.

Thanks to Mike Shields for the photos.

Later E.G.

Gol Gol 3rd round

With a well thought out plan to go and hit the goods of Argentina we took off once again from the safety of our shack in Pucon, and loaded the Kayak Pucon van for a mission to El Bolson. Little did we know our trip had a terrible fate lurking in from birth. From our night of sleep at the Gol Gol we headed over the pass to Argentina and got a slap in the face when they told us we couldn't enter because oft he kayaks. Don't want to get into that... it was terrible.

So with our tails between our legs we ran back to gods land and put directly on the Rio Gol Gol with perfect flows. A+ shit running no doubt!

All photos by Fred Gnarquist

A nice looking rock on the way to argentina... which we never got into.

Boofing to warm up on the first drop'r

Monkey steeze is the way of the future.

Oh maybe the classic of the entire run.

The sluce box with Miguel about to split the tits.

A nice boof for the ladies.

Jared on the same 15 footer with a big hole.

The second biggest/best drop of the run Miguel slayin' another huge boof.

Rodriog firing up the Indio first.

Flying off the Indio man!

Jared with the GoPro camera strapped to his head ready to go deep.

Indio is a stout!!! You go F-ing deep on this guy here. However it's very soft and smooth. I think it was 3 blown skirts and 3 good... 50/50 with that hahaha The pool is big and beautiful so if something was to happen there is a nice recovery zone to help you out. Gol Gol is the business get there and stout.

Later E.G.

Rio Negro

The Rio Negro is still yet a secret of the Chilean lands so I won't get to deep in to it's whereabouts. The thing about it is we heard that there was a cleanish 60 footer on there that had never been run before... so we went with all the ganas to run that shit. Once we got there we found the river at a low level but still containing so many good to go drops we all fell in love with this gem after running it twice.

The group enoying the depths of the Canyon del Negro.

Patagonia in all its beauty... el Rio Puelo on the way south.

Kurt Casey, running the brown with demshitz.

Fusilli boofing another treat layer... this thing gave us the opportunity to get oiut there and rally some goods.

The 20 footer dropper. with some good lines we kept her going.

Me and Graham standing behind a 5o footer... It was quite like it but it felt as cold as Christmas.

Toro running a classic 1 meter 50 drop within the goods of the run.

Kurt Casey pan frying some fresh salmon stright from the ocean a was only a 10 minute drive from the takeout.

Jared blasting thourgh rapid we dubbed' the love canal.

Auto boof Desahue steeze... this drop made for some funny lines. If you went a little off line it punished some folks.

Jared blue steel with the big boy behind him.

Me on the last segment of the best rapid of the run in my opinion.... very fast curlers in to a 6 foot macker.

Boofing the shallow 15 footer above the stout.

Our camp at the takeout of the run.. it was amazing to run all that good whitewater and hop out to a green feild and a big fire.

It was kind of a mix with all three classic Pucon runs... Palguin, Desahue, and LLancahue. Truly that good. Everything went but we did not drop the big boy. I'm not saying why or where because I will be back someday to clean up our mess. hahahaha...

Demshitz riding the ferry back up to Puerto Montt on our way back home to Pucon.

Enjoy the photos of this new BRINE run we found down there. Shots by Mike, Toro, and Fred.

Later E.G.

Rio Cochamo Mission

After a failed attempt on a new river south of Pucon we were on our main mission to go and run the famous Rio Cochamo. Assisting us on this mission was Kurt Casey, Cool Dave, and Swiss Toro. We had the Brown Ranger which maxed out at about 80 km/hr so we made slow but good time down to the where the river meets the Pacific ocean. From there we rounded up 9 horses and two elder guides to help us take all of our kayaks and gear about 10 miles up the river.

Our first sign of the Cochamo and after a nice beautiful drive south along the pacific ocean.

With a good night of sleep under our belts we slowly loaded our kayaks on with 8 horse's and all of our gear to make the hike go smoothly.

Fusilli-Gramos-EG-Miguel ready to go hiking.

In the beginning it was all good we made good time and had no boats on our shoulders so we were happy. Then the trail got worse and the boats fell off, the horses were tired and angry, and the horse flies were coming in like the plague. After we made it up the shady trail I would say that even with heavy kayak it would have been faster and easyer to just carry them your self.

Our guide Rojas from Cochamo... a true patagonian horse man.

The horse's struggling to squeeze through a canyon in the trail about 6 miles into the hike.

Once we did get to what they cal La Junta, all was well. The views were like Yosemite and with no other way the reach this valley other than a sketchy trail we were in a bad ass piece of wilderness. When everyone had arrived and gear was unloaded we all ran up the tributary coming in at our camp and swam a clean 80 foot long slide for an hour+. Possibly one of the funnest shitz of the trip up there.

Big wall climbing at it's best... this is the place to be if you love steeps in or out of the water.

Our nice green and beautiful campground at La Junta. Our Chilean friend owns this camp and allowed us to camp there for free.

The cleanest slide in the world... even good to go on your ass.

Jared about to break his Anhoos on the Brown Falls slide.

The best carnage of the trip. Nation and Stout Master.

After some nice swimming and enjoyment of the place we were now stuck in we started a big fire and cooked a delicious pasta dish over an open fire and ate till we had our fill and were ready for sleep.

Chilling around the fire in the most beautiful Yosemite of Chile.

In the morning we awoke early to a some what cloudy day outside covered in due from a chilly night of sleeping under the stars. Small amounts of oatmeal and bread got us ready for what was going to be a long day of running the shit for real. We didn't really have a good idea of what was in there all we knew is that it got easyer the further downstream you got??? So that's what we knew.

This was the end of the first steep section of drop Jared and I ran down this stout while the boys watched on.

Droppin' in to the sketchy log siphon slot... but it went just fine.

Throwing up a sick "BROWN" on a nasty auto boofer.

The basic idea of the day was to get in there and run everything that was even close to runnable. Jared and I followed suit by only making 3 portages thorough out the entire river.

In the mucky muck Jared and myself looking on as Fusilli slays onward.

This is the drop Fusilli was slayin' onward.

The Rio Cochamo was an amazing piece of whitewater, possibly the most challenging run I have done down in South America. The thing ws just so steep and stacked up. More so than Bottom 9 of the Kings, Golden Gate, or anything I can think of at this time. But for the most part if you can stout, climbing boulders, and running some hard class V, you will truly love this river.

Jared on a clean'er after the only really runnable drop we left untouched.

Jared about to lay some treats in dat'.

Graham boofing a nice falls in a great section of the steepz.

The Nation Shrimpin' Brine!

Heard of caveman on Raven's. This is a 20 foot version of datshitz. hahahaha!

So that what you just looked at was all in about 1.5 kms. Steep as hell it took a good portion of the day to get through that section without any issues. From then on out we thought it ws going to chill out but we were very wrong.

Eating a beautifully prepared lunch after the steepest section.

After our lunch we kept finding more and more steep ass drops and committing pieces of whitewater that blew my mind.

Graham just in another rapid on another canyon... it just didn't went and went.

Me in the middle of what we called "The Middle Kings rapid".

Launching another classic boofer.

Jared firing up a super unique drop near the end of the goods.

So all in all this river way over exceeded my expectations I had previously had in my mind. With a few fired up partners I was able to really make the best of this run. Very consequence moves to make don't take this run lightly, it had lots of similarities to runs like Devil's Postpile and the Kind in California. But it is possible to get in there and enjoy the place and walk most of the hardest sections.

Overall Cochamo is one of the best missions you can get yourself in to down here, or anywhere in the world.

After all was done and good we had a celebration. It was late after a long day of boating and we camped at the takeout more or less with some big old Greenies waiting for us.

Photos by Mike Shields & and Fred Norquist.

Later E.G.