Palguin Race 2010

One more day on the Upper Palguin yesterday, which was made notable by the fact that it was the day of the Palguin Race, AKA Carnage Fest 2010. After running a lap of the river in the morning, I set up on a cliff overlooking the first drop with my camera, and watched the show. There were some great lines, but these were mostly by the safety boaters who came through before the racers, and came through one at a time. Pileups in a hole above a 10 foot drop make for very interesting racing. Hence my decision to watch and laugh, rather than racing. A few of the best action shots:

Look closely: there are two boaters in there.




This one actually ended OK...




And this is Martin showing how it's supposed to be done.

After that, we went to the Kayak Hostel for dinner and drinks around the fire, swapping boating stories and generally having a good time, before heading into Pucon for a night on the town.

Today, we got off to a very lazy start, which meant time to learn how Anita makes sopapillas, which is a Chilean variety of fried bread, which made for a great breakfast before heading up to the Upper Trancura for the day's boating. This was back to a bigger volume river, but it wasn't just big wave trains- the drops were a little bit more technical. And there was one meaty class V that we portaged. When we got back, I traded in the Nomad for a Molan, which I've been wanting to paddle for ages, and headed down to the Trancura bridge, where a pretty decent wave forms. The Molan was way less stable than I was expecting, and I failed miserably at getting on the wave after getting stern squirted and pushed around in the lead-in on half a dozen attempts. But I did throw some ends in flatwater, and kept my head out of the water on my backdeck rolls, and I'm sure I can learn to love that boat. I just have to get used to it first...

That's all for now, and this may be my last post of the trip; we'll see if I get online again before heading home on Wednesday. If I can't post again from here, I'll throw up a summary when I get home!!

Best,
B