Spe's World

With these bilingual rallying cries: "No Dams in Patagonia" and "No a las Represas en La Patagonia" over 100 members of the river-running community, local Futaleufenses, and other interested parties met on March 14th to protest the potential damming on the Futaleufu river. The 14th of March is the International Day of Rivers against the Dams and the protest was hosted at the soccer field of the rural Rio Azul school 30 km outside of the town of Futaleufu.

The letters of the messages were formed with rafts, kayaks, catarafts, and the bodies of the adamant protesters themselves as the scene was photographed from above. As the brainchild of the Free Flowing Rivers Environmental Society, the event drew public notice to the very-real possibility that the Futaleufu, and all the unpredictability and excitement that goes with it, could be buried beneath mile after mile of flatwater.

The event was one of great cheer, as members of Expediciones Chile and other rafting and kayak companies celebrated the river, and yet a somber tone lingered in the foggy air. No one wants to give up something they love and the message was that those in attendance may be willing to fight. But will anyone be able to fight hard enough to prevent Endesa from exploiting the Futaleufu water rights that they've already legally obtained from the Chilean government?

Only time will ultimately tell. But, in the meantime, please visit Futafriends.org or Freeflowingrivers.com for more information about the dams and the conservation efforts for the Futaleufu river.

Those of us living in the Futaleufu Valley have found ourselves craning our necks and looking apprehensively to the bright Patagonian skies this last week. Sounding like not-so-distant mechanized mosquitoes a series of brightly-decaled helicopters have begun thundering through the river canyons of the Futa from Infierno to lower Macal.

Ordinarily a helicopter is just a helicopter: a search and rescue mission; a panoramic tour for travelers; a means of transport or exploration. But, in this case, we wonder, an exploration of what. For there are no helicopters based out of Futaleufu or its surrounding environs. So why are they here disturbing our boaters, our fish, our crystalline turquoise waters?

It was actually one of our guests on their way to the Expediciones Chiles Adventure Lodge in Futaleufu from Chaiten who happened to run into one of the members of the helicopter expedition. They mentioned, vaguely, that they are a team of geologists engaging in a survey of the Futaleufu river valleys. When asked the purpose of their survey the team member became less candid and explained that they had to go "see to some things."

But there is nothing vague about the queasy feeling exacted by the helicopters' appearances for those thinking about the very plausible implications. The Futaleufu River has been the subject of potential plans for a series of Hydroelectric dams for a number of years. Spain-based Endesa, which dammed the Bio Bio River, has merged with a Chilean power conglomerate and the joint venture looks for a way to provide new power inroads to larger cities such as Puerto Montt, Temuco, and even Santiago. And what could provide more hydroelectric power than three massive dams constructed in the middle of the Futa's most powerful and tumultuous rapid sections?

Provide electricity, yes. Take away our beloved river, yes also. Sure travelers could still come and experience the turquoise waters of the Futaleufu no matter what. But for a body of water which means "Big River" in the native Mapuche tongue there would need to be a new name constructed for the placid and tame waters feeding into the concrete dams and ceasing to act wild and unpredictable--the very hallmarks of a worthwhile whitewater experience.

The Chilean government panicked when Argentina went through its recession in the early years of the 21st century and cut off the natural gas that helped to power many regions in Chile. No longer does this affluent government want to have to rely on anyone but themselves. They want a source of power that is both reliable and permanent. These are words that directly contradict that which we love about rivers. Look anywhere in Futaleufu and you can see change on the horizon. The roads are being paved; a cell tower is waiting to be erected in 2007; new bridges are being built. Change is on the way, that's for sure, and now it is receiving a whirring man-made leitmotif from above.

Sure, a river is just a river. Progress is only progress. And a helicopter is just a helicopter...right?

Chris Spelius called it the storm of the decade and, in his twenty years in Patagonia, he could not remember a tempest with stronger winds. Our sea kayak trip across the Andes Mountains started with trepidation at the end of a weeklong rain in the Futaleufu Valley. Thinking we had seen the worst of what the Patagonia weather could deliver we set out in our sea kayaks from Puerto Ramirez for a five day journey to the Pacific Ocean.

Things looked like they might be promising on our first day, a possible Christmas day gift. The clouds were gray but not oppressive. The wind whispered but did not howl. As we pushed off into the dark turquoise waters of the lower Futaleufu river we felt the pattering of rain against our neon kayaks and matching paddle jackets, but it was subdued. We thought that maybe the weather would even clear up a bit. We found no suck luck.

Cut to twenty four hours later--half-way through day two and crossing the Lago Yelcho, already freezing and tired. We'd set up our camp in the rain the night before but hadn't truly experienced what the weather had in store for us until that afternoon. Hard sleeting rain poured down through our neoprene collars and into the sleeves of our supposedly "dry-top" jackets. Gnashing five-foot swells tried their best to pummel the sides of our boats while we struggled to keep our bows pointed directly into the crashing waves. Coupled with an aggressive spitting wind we felt as though we were paddling on a liquid treadmill.

We were four kayakers in two singles and a double with the single goal of pushing forward to a small peninsula where we intended to stop and eat lunch. The other guide, George, nearly inaudible, shouted back from the front of our kayak:

"I'm starting to shiver. I think I'm showing signs of hypothermia."

I responded with something vaguely encouraging and didn't dwell on the fact that my toes were numb; my fingers tingling unpleasantly. We reached the peninsula and very nearly couldn't find a safe place to exit our boats due to the high water caused by weeks of rain and tormentas in the Futaleufu Valley. Finally we pushed our yellow bow into the undulating swells of a driftwood forest and were able to stand on solid (though not dry) land. Within five minutes our shivering guests John and Robin paddled faithfully in our direction. Our plan was to eat lunch and warm up a bit. They both looked scared to leave the security of their boats and the protection of the spray skirts. They asked if it was necessary to stop here. George and I looked in the dim direction of our intended camp site, a good six kilometers still to go with nowhere to stop along the way, and informed that, yes, we need to stop.

After indolently helping them out of their boats and pulling the crafts out of the water we considered the dismaying prospects of unloading all our food and cooking gear just to huddle around a sputtering camp stove while the unrelenting rains commenced. I looked into a patch of small trees offered as shelter by the peninsula and caught a quick glimpse of something unmistakably blue. At first I thought it might have been a tantalizing patch of clear sky, but then shook this thought immediately from my thick skull. I looked again--still a blue apparition. George has disappeared.

"Where are you?" I asked. "Should we start getting lunch set up?"

"Come check this out!" George shouted, and I quickly excused myself from the company of Robin and John who were quite occupied with a vigorous and necessary round of jumping jacks and standing wind sprints.

What George had discovered was a tiny abandoned cabin beneath the faded blue tin roof which I had seen. Inside there were remnants of life--a dilapidated wood stove, dry firewood, nails on the walls for hanging things. We surveyed the scene briefly and lucidly. Without exchanging a word we moved to the shore to reel in the freezing couple who were surely to prefer the sound of rain against a tin roof to the same against their sopping-wet hoods. After lighting a fire, preparing lunch, and hanging our wet gear to dry in the warm sauna-like air we decided against continuing on for the rest of the day. We bedded down happily and well-fed, lucky in our discovery. Back in the town of Futaleufu Chris Spelius was on the phone with every pilot he could get a hold of, considering calling in an airplane to make sure we were still alive. After all, the winds had reached upwards of eight miles per hour that evening and we very nearly witnessed that blue tin roof getting ripped from its frame. Not exactly ideal paddling conditions by any four-way stretch of the imagination.

The next morning we continued along the lake--finding more agreeable conditions and even a few moments of sun between fitful rain storms. We stopped to take a quick snack break at a little farm and were greeted with open arms by the family that lived there with no roads connecting their residence to the rest of the world. The mother asked if we were crazy enough to be camping in the storm and I explained about the cabin we had found. She had already heard of it--it was called La Roca Pancha. She told me more about it: the cabin was built fifty or sixty years ago by an Argentinean woman who lived with her husband there (as their primary residence no less). Since then travelers occasionally find this cabin in conditions just like those we had experienced. Everyone leaves a little something behind she informed us: the custom unbeknownst to us, our gift was a bundle of recently-dried wood and a couple cans of peaches. The family was incredulous of our trip and offered to let us stay on their property. We laughed with good fortune but turned down the offer. Instead we gave her some extra produce we carried and she gave us homemade sopapillas slathered in warm butter. We ate the delicacies as we paddled away toward Puerto Cardenas, the Rio Yelcho, the Pacific Ocean, and the eventual end of our five-day sea kayak voyage.

All of us would recover from the cold and the rain, the sore shoulder muscles, and file these events away with the rest of our respective memories. One thing that will remain present, though, in each of our mind's eyes is the feeling of discovering an abandoned cabin with dry wood and the way our emotions overcame our shivering in a prescient moment of celebration. The trips Expediciones Chile run down here in Chilean Patagonia never cease to amaze me with their unexpected joys, physically-challenging and rewarding moments, and cultural interactions you would be hard-pressed to find anywhere other than "the greatest playground on earth."


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By Devan Schwartz

The first Nobel Prizes were awarded in 1901 created by Alfred Nobel, a man most widely recognized for the invention of dynamite. One morning this December of 2006, four kayak guides from Expediciones Chile stumbled across some dynamite of their own on the mighty Futaleufú river.

While doing a training run through the infamous Inferno Canyon, Fergus Coffey, Alex White, Bob Vranich, and Jason Quinn thought they knew what to expect. Only Fergus had boated the canyon before (upwards of twenty times) but they all had their expected lines memorized. They passed into Dance of Angels normally a solid Class IV wavetrain but they found something much smaller that seemed completely out of place. There was an eerie calm as they passed into a section of flatwater above The Perfect Storm rapid. Downstream they stared at something entirely unexpected. I started noticing landslides on the left side, said Fergus, and seeing splashes of whitewater below the horizon line.

Unbeknownst to the intrepid kayakers, careless road crews blasting a new road along the canyon wall had sent tons upon tons of debris into the turquoise waters of the river below, without any public announcement. Most likely the workers hadn't given it a second thought, while the kayakers became more and more transfixed by this brand new river feature with each passing second.

I looked to Fergus for direction, recalls Jason, politely asking him, what the hell are we doing? Himself as surprised as anyone, Fergus started zig-zagging and trying to find an eddy in which to slow his momentum. I realized we were fully committed to the drop, he said. I saw the diagonal, took a quick look at the hole, and start paddling as hard as I could to punch through it driving right.

Alex, the third kayaker, was wondering to himself why does Fergus look so confused? The water was backed up flat, then there was a horizon line with white mist coming up from behind it. And it sounded like dynamite.

Bob was the last kayaker to make his initiation run into this brand-new Class V rapid. Our survival boating instincts had to take over, he said. Deep down we all knew there was no place to stop no place to scout. Nothing we could possibly do but run the rapid which we had already entered into. The reactionary coming from the right was huge and swallowing each of the boaters that ran in front of me.

As one kayaker after another pushed through the tumultuous new rapid they could do nothing but hope for the best. After I made it through I spun around and looked back frantically at the other guys, said Fergus. This turned what was normally a Class II rapid into a Class V section.

All four boaters skillfully made it through the rapid without great incident (beyond getting knocked over by the pushy waves, thus forcing them to roll their kayaks). Fergus, Jason, Alex and Bob then regrouped downstream of the canyon to collectively shake their heads in puzzlement and ask themselves what did we just run?!

The kayakers soon gathered the details of the roadside blasting and the creation of the new feature. They decided on the rapid name Dynamite, which they had just explored for the very first time. It goes without saying that it's a rare thing to discover a new rapid, and especially on a river as important in the global whitewater community as the Futaleufú. And it left the kayakers both excited and unsettled. There's the excitement of doing this first descent, said Bob (who has also done first ascents in Burma, India, and Guatemala), then there's the fact that it's a manmade destruction in the river. How long is it before other parts of the Futa become unrunnable? This event is, in some sense, a gift to boaters, though we're left to wonder if the next incident won't destroy one of our beloved rapids or something even worse.

Let us not forget that the Futaleufú is a river covered by the dark shadow of its possible damming by the multi-national Spain-based Endesa corporation who famously dammed the Bio Bio river. And just as the unannounced roadside blasting came without fanfare, so might a set of Futaleufú dams. It's not like they're going to put up signs on the lampposts announcing the construction of the dams, said Fergus, at once irreverent and affected by this possibility.

We at Expediciones Chile are busy working with local officials to make sure that the reckless blasting will hopefully not repeat itself. As always, we oppose the building of the dams and try our best to stay informed by the scant information the Chilean government releases about their future plans. And while we're forced to wait and see how further development in the valley will affect the Futaleufu River Valley, we remain committed to running the safest and most exciting whitewater trips available in Patagonia.

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By Devan Schwartz

For a Full Description of the new Dynamite Rapid see: ExChile Futaleufu Guide