Hayley Stuart styles the 20fter on the Upper Fuy. Photo by Stephen Wright.
Hey every one it’s Drew Mceachern here again. Today I am going to let all the viewers know about the River that the New River students have been styling the past week. Its called the Upper Rio Fuy and its stout! A clear blue river with everything from bolder gardens to 20ft drops! It is a great run. The Upper part of the Fuy starts with about 5 to 10 min of flat water then the river starts to get steep! For most the river we have nice class 3 or 4 water with some really fun boofs and great lines! After about an hour or fun class 3/4 water we get to hit up the drop section! The 1st drop is a “clean” 20 foot drop with a big tongue right down the middle, but there is also a nice boof line just to the river right of the tongue with a perfect flake to boof off! As soon as you are done the 20ft drop, there is a small 8-10 foot boof with a kinda hard line but a really fun drop. About 30 ft farther down the river there is another 6 or 7 ft drop with a nasty hole but also a really clean line! And guess whats after that: Yet another drop! A really clean 12 foot drop with a ton of different lines you can run! After the drop section its a few more min of white water then we are back to flat water for about 10 min to the take out! Over all its a unreal run and a perfect training ground for the New River students and one of my personal favorite runs!
Three days into the 3rd quarter with New River Academy in Chile, the Nevados came in. The Nevados has the Demshitz drop on it, which is double drop around 50 feet tall. It had dropped out before my break started because there has been no rain, and we are not allowed to run anything over 30 feet with the school.
I spent the last 44 days of break rain dancing and praying for water so I could run more stouts. Our entire first week back in Pucon was cold and rainy, but it was great because the river levels were coming up. The only problem? Now more rapids were it finally in and school had started. This time I was lucky, my mom had been visiting for a little while and was able to sign me out of school to go kayaking.
Me, Tino, Jake, Hunt, and Bartl left to go run Demshitz Drop. On getting there it was quite low but I was prepared for it and thought the hit would be worth it. Jake went first, went sideways down most of it and missed the rock at the bottom by about a foot. On my run I hit a boof flake on the reconnect, I boofed out a bit and stomped it back down. On Hunts run he pitoned on the re-connect and was lucky enough to keep going straight and not go over vert.
It was a sick day and I’m stoked about the fact that I got to run it this year. Definitely worth the low water hit witch turned out to not be that bad.
That week at the school awards, I won the River Otter award: For the student who spends the most time on the water, or works the hardest on the water, who basically gets after it the most. Hunt, Bartl and I were all nominated, which equals GREAT SUCCESS!
I was lucky enough to get a GoPro camera over break, and have had a lot of fun so far testing it out on the rivers in Chile over my break. The majority of the school went home for Christmas, but I got to stay the entire 6 weeks in Chile, running some stouter rapids. One of the rapids I was most excited to run was “Stout 10″: a burly 10 foot boof that is right above the Middle Palguin, a 70 foot waterfall into a flat pool.
Still Charging
Line Up
Boof
Land
Style
Throw a Brown Claw
Ferry
Feel the Rush
Enjoy The View
Ride It Proud
Check Your Vitals
Fist Pump
Here is a photo sequence I took with my Go Pro of running Stout 10 on Middle Palguin in Chile. I had great lines on both and great fun! I will let the photos say the rest. Hopefully you can get a sense of what it was like to run it. Enjoy!
On one of our days off of school in Pucon we got the chance to do something truly amazing. We got the opportunity to climb to the top of the volcano that borders the city of Pucon. It is called the Villarrica volcano, which is one of Chile’s most active volcanoes. It is also one of only five known volcanoes in the world to have an active volcano lake in its’ crater.
It was quite the experience. I thought it would just be a little hike similar to hikes that I have done before in the Adirondacks. However, I was strongly mistaken. This hiking experience was a full-on mountaineering trek. At the beginning of the day we were given a snowsuit and a backpack full of supplies for our hike. The pack included thin mitts, an ice pick, a slide, and room for snacks that would fuel us for the long hike to come. Our awesome guides made the hike as fun as it could be. They were really great. They let us stop when we needed breaks and were very concerned about everyone in the group. After about 20 minutes of hiking I was ready to give up, and we hadn’t even reached the snow yet! We had just hiked for a long time on a 45 degree incline before the snow covered part of the mountain started. And then it got steeper. Most of the hike from then on was just passing back and forth on the steep snow covered slope working our way up the mountainside very slowly. About 30 minutes away from the top everyone got too cold and we decided to turn back before anyone got frost bite, which I think a few of us came pretty close to.
The way down was a lot more fun than the way up. We got to take out our butt-slide from our packs and attached them to our selves for the ride down. After being secured to the little piece of plastic we jumped and off we went down the slope that we had worked so very hard to get up. With a little jump and slide you slide for hundreds of meters down an almost vertical slope. It was so much fun but also pretty scary when you got going at such high speeds. Luckily we had our ice picks that our guide taught us to use as a brake to slow down when sliding. There was lots of little collisions and rolling around down the slope on the way down. I decided that it was definitely worth the hike! If I got a chance to do it again I definitely would to get the glory and great feeling of self-accomplishment of making it to the top. But I’d do it on a warmer day next time!
Today is our fourth day in the small surf town of Pichilemu, on Chile’s coast. We drove here from the Maipo valley earlier this week after an unforgettable night camping up in the mountains. We had driven up to the site where (if it were to be built) the proposed dam on the Maipo would begin. This 70km bypass would destroy countless amounts of wildlife and beautiful scenery in what is (in my most humble opinion) one of the most beautiful places on this planet. The mountains surround the valley like massive walls, and their snow capped peaks help to illustrate their shear size, some even have glaciers on them. The entire area seemed like something out of lord of the rings; huge boulders lying strewn about a valley, mountains, constant landslides, and perilous roads seemed commonplace. It’s unfathomable to me that someone could even consider destroying such beauty for the sake of something so material as money. But, unfortunately, such is the case here. In september the dam will be finalized, and once again we will destroy one of the worlds wonders in our quest to expand and flourish. Their is some hope for the valley and river however, the locals here are rallying to raise awareness and stop the relentless march of progress. A small group lead by Soco (the owner of the house we stayed in whilst by the river) is organizing events such as the one we participated in to bring people up to this incredible place and show them the injustice of the damming project. I can only hope the people realize what a wonder they are losing in time to stop the project from going through.
After much time spent viewing the scenery and interacting with others from ‘No Alto Maipo” we left for the 4 hour drive to the coast. The drive took us back through the mountains, and out into the agricultural valley below. We passed by Santiago and what seemed like endless miles of vineyards and farmland until we finally began to rise once again into the the hills which flank the ocean. The feeling was electric when we finally glimpsed the vast body of water- massive waves, relentless surf, and long dark beaches. We had finally arrived at our play boating destination; Pichilemu. This small town would be our base for the next 5 days as we tested our skills on the ocean waves. We managed to get out on the surf the first day, however we took it easy and went directly out as opposed to going to the large point break which forms farther down the beach. The waves surprised me in their size and magnitude, they made arial tricks not only possible, but almost hard NOT to throw! Our second day was even better, we headed out to the point break and caught some of the big waves there. Here they dwarfed us in our little play boats and frequently caught us and tossed us around, it seemed that the wave was demanding a toll for every trick. Most of the time we caught them but on occasion one of us would get close, miss, and go head over the heels into a tumble lasting a couple seconds, making for some hilarious wipeouts and beat downs. Fortunately we had 2 GoPros with us, meaning we got plenty of footage of tricks, and the subsequent beat downs. On one such occasion I threw a Pan-Am, (a trick I have been working on all year) and caught it on camera (finally!).
The surf might be the thing that brought us to Pichilemu, but it was the lifestyle that has enticed me to want to come back. The towns culture is unlike anything I have ever seen. A kind of cross between California surf culture, and small town Chilean customs. There is a big main strip consisting of everything from surf shops, to empanada stands. Horse’s and carriages parade around the town, enticing tourists and locals alike, and coffee shops dot the sidewalks offering a temporary reprieve from the hustle and bustle of the surfing lifestyle.
And that brings us to where we are now, sitting in a cafe writing these blogs and updating our Facebook, preparing for another day of paradise and surfing, we leave for the Rio Claro tomorrow, and though I will miss this place, I cannot help but be excited for the next leg of our trip; the infamous Pucon.
My Name is Keaton Strongman, I am 18 years old and from Mississauga Ontario. I am currently in the Gap Year program at new River Academy, spending 2 months in Chile’s Patagonia mountain region. I have been kayaking for 5 years and got into the sport at a relatively young age when I saw some kayakers from a raft trip on the ottawa river. The sport looked dangerous, reckless, and completely insane, so naturally I was hooked from day 1. While I now know it is in fact a very safe and refined sport, it has not lost its sense of adventure. I now work with those same kayakers that drew my eye those years ago (Ottawa Kayak School). I have Paddled a number of rivers in Quebec and Ontario, as well as some in New York, however most of the paddling experience I have is in play boating, and I welcome the opportunity to learn more about creeking here in chile.
The view from our house
I heard about New River while doing a summer program called the Keeners on the Ottawa river. It sounded amazing and I was convinced it was the right thing for me. It is a perfect opportunity to get out and see the world, while also kayaking, before university. 12 Months after hearing about the program here I am in the Maipo valley in Chile! My first day included a sweet run on the lower Maipo, and I am very excited for our run today!
