Week one in Chile
We arrived to Chile in awe of the natural beauty. There were mountains everywhere and everything was so colorful and pretty. We got to the base in Pucon and everyone was stoked to see one another and meet our three new teachers Julia Fisher, Melina Coogan, and Matias Nunez. We quickly got settled and had a safety clinic by the play hole on the Trancora River. We paddled and played happy to be once again with New River Academy. David Hughes mentor group took everyone on a trip to the Tres Altos. The Tres Altos are a series of waterfalls where we climbed down to a 15 foot slide with about a 12 foot drop off, let’s just say I was scared sliding down something on my butt then flying off not exactly something I jump at the opportunity to do, but with the help of a pirate floaty I slowly urged myself to the edge and the water took me down and fast, with a smile on my face I popped up on the bottom.
Soon after that we all crammed into the van and took off to Choshuenco with stopping on the San Pedro River. The San Pedro is a beautiful run about 7 or 8 miles with crystal clear warm water. The river gets its water from one of Chiles HUGE lakes so the water is solar heated. The rapids were so much fun, wave trains galore with two class 4 big water rapids. The cool thing about the San Pedro is that when you flip you can see the river bed passing underneath you it got me quite dizzy looking down at it, but the sun was shining and the water glistened, everything was just so pretty with the mountains and the clouds in the background.
Photo by Tracy D’Arbeloff of the Volcano near the base in Pucon, Chile
We are now in the small town of Choshuenco, and when I say small I really mean small it has two dirt roads in it, but the people here are so nice and it is gorgeous even in the pouring rain.
Emery Tillman
Tags: Chile, new river academy, whitewater
