Good times

Hardly one week has past and I packed my stuff again and travelled once again to Pucon for some great paddling, partying and hanging around with friends..

-Put in at Ben's House, pic: me-

The first night I had to sleep at the busstaition in Temuco, because I didn't get my connecting bus to pucon in time.
Actually I had my sleepingbag and my matress with me, so I joined some good hours in the station. The next morning I took the first bus to Pucon and arrived at 9:00 o'clock in my favourite destination in chile so far. 10 minutes later I met up Berni and Leon in the city, drinking coffe and having breakfast. The next thing we had to do was to organice two rentalcars, therefore Leo and Berni knew a guy where we got a good offer for one pickup and one subaru legacy. At 12am we loaded the boats up picked up Charlie,  and went to the river. We were a pretty big group including 3 Swiss, 3 French, 1 English, 1 Peruvian, 2 Chilenen, 1 Austrian and two German. Unfortuanetly the weather of last week was very warm and dry so just the palguin was running. We spend a nice day together on the river and ran some good classic rapids like the portagerapid on the middle section. 

-Droping into the portage, pic: Philipp Notheis-

Afterwards we made a big barbecue at the hostel so called Paradise and went for a couple of beers in the bar mama's and tapas. For the next day we had planed to do a Todo palguin run. This includes every rapid on the upper, the middle and the lower. We woke up at 8:00 am and drove up to the putin. Within was Michael, Charlie, Fabien, Daniel and Sam. The upper section was done in 15 minutes and the next rapid was the portage again. Everybody of us decided to do the sealaunching, except Michael. He was fired up to run this massiv rapid. 15 meters, seperated in two high volume drops which are hardly to control and the first drop leads into a nasty kind of slide where you have to go through. I have never seen a good line in this drop on each video I watched. On last saturday Michael Charles had a very good and clean line there. Congrats man ;) 

-Michael Charles running the hole portage, Pic: me-

-pic, Philipp Notheis-

After this rapids the middle section owns some really nice boogy-rapids which are quite a lot fun and are sorrounded by perfect landscape. 2 km more the river gets steep again and flows into a rapid called boof to swim. Boof to swim is a nice but also very scary waterfall with round about 7 meters. On the lip there is a well shaped curler where you want to do a steep lean and boofing the hell out of you. I went first and had a sweet line. The others followed and everybody did a good job.

-boofing boof to swim, pic: Sam Itkin-

-pic: Sam Itkin-

After this beautiful waterfall the palguin directly gets very, very steep again. Maybe one of the most famous waterfalls with an scary, difficult entrance: the Middle Palguin fall with the entrance called stout 10. We scouted it and after 15 min Daniel, Michael and me decided to bomb it. Daniel went first, Michael second and myself was last. Really nervous, because stout 10 is a very tricky boof where you want to be on top of a tung and make a right boofstroke, I exit the eddy and paddled towards stout 10 did a last left stroke which pulled me on the tung, made a lean to the right, right boofstroke and I landed without having to roll. Perfect. Next step was the 23 meter high waterfall. paddling to the lip feeling your hard beating, watching down, throwing your paddle, covering yourself and booommm you are down. Good feelings. After this rapid we decided to finish for today cause it started to rain.

                                                                                                         - Daniel  in the middle, pic:me-

-Michael running the middle,pic:me-

 -Stout 10, pic: Sam Itkin-

-about to drop into the middle, pic: Sam Itkin-

The following night it was raining a lot and we were keen on going to the nevados again. We also hoped that maybe the Turbio drops in but unfortuanetly it didn't. So we did a fast lap on the nevados the next day. A lot of people, a lot of fun and  lots of good lines.

                                                                                                                                                        -Slide, pic: Daniel Rodón-

-charlie, sam, me, pic: Daniel Rodón-

                     - Charlie in the mustrun, pic: me-                                                    
 

                                                                                                        -Momo on dulce amor, pic: me

- dulce amor, pic: me-

-dulce amor, Pic: Daniel Rodón-

After this awesome day I was fired up for going big again. Quitschie and his crew arrived to Pucon on saturday. They had some nice laps on the Rio Claro and were pretty stoked. Also on monday it was Quitschies 19th Birthday and his present was an Complete palguin-session. So we started very early again and hit down the palguin. not scouting just going down and having fun. 

                    -Quitschie styling boof to swim, pic: me-

-Boof to swim, pic: Ben Hawthorne-

Such a nice weather and a good waterlevel made us feeling happy and comfortabel. So after good lines on boof to swim we scouted once again this huge, but good looking waterfall. Ben, Joe and Guy went down for taking pictures and doing safety. 
So it was my turn once again... 

-second run down the middle, pic: Ben Hawthorne-


Including all these nice rivers, it was a awesome weekend .Beeing on the river with good people. Thanks Guys for having a great time.