Exploring the mind and vertical limits of packrafting.
Photos and Story by: Will Howerton
This is part one of a two part story - The Upper Palguin.
Waterfalls, what a wonderful word that is, it rolls off the tongue like the name of an Italian sports car. Inspired by the photos of Tyler Bradt running Spirit Falls on the Little White Salmon, I was pretty keen to test my new Valkyrie on as many waterfalls as I could in Chile. I was very excited to say the least.
As a resident of the Boise Idaho area, there are multiple rivers right at my finger tips. What I do not have a lot of is time off, or waterfalls to run. This situation stems from my career choice as a whitewater kayak and now packrafting instructor. My summers are filled with operating popular kids camps, under the supervision of Chad Long at Cascade Raft & Kayak. So this was the perfect small window of time and opportunity for me to see what boundaries I could explore within myself and within a packraft. For me, the greatest challenges we face in the backcountry is exploring the faith in ourselves, our intuition and confidence in the skills we have practiced on and off the water.
My first full waterfall opportunity was an Upper Palguin run. Known as one of the easier sections of waterfalls to run in Chile and a popular run for kayakers in Pucon. I knew it would be a great testing ground for me and my packraft. It has three drops. A 10 foot drop at the start, then a 15 foot drop in the middle, and a 20 foot drop at the end. I felt all three were forgiving enough to polish up my slightly rusty waterfall skills.
With my packraft I don’t do the normal kayaker put in which is a drop off a cliff, so I headed down to the first drop to blow up “BEYONSLIEGH”. A name I thought it was fitting for my packraft. Lots of other kayakers quickly showed up and were very intrigued by my boat choice and the fact that my skirt was so light weight, placing bets on how fast I would get stuck in the first drop and swim. Much to their surprise, I was able to run the drop with less strokes and fully disconnect while boofing the main drop that everyone was lapping. It defiantly surprised me as well since this was my first major piece of whitewater I was able to try with my packraft. I was more so happy that I had a very light weight and class 5 capable boat. Running a drop like that in good style can really inflate ones ego. Once the ego gets inflated it becomes an easy target for the next rapid downstream. Once we got a few good clean laps in, my ego was set up perfectly to be deflated.
"Charge to the river right, use a left boof stroke, and keep the right angle", this was the beta that I got. The second drop comes slower than the first, so with my inflated ego, I paddled slower, I used a sweep that didn’t work, insert that and a few other wrong stroke choices. You get one packrafter getting ready to plug the middle of the second drop. Not where you really want to be, I plugged well. Unfortunately not upright, but rolled up just in time to be sucked back into the falls and quickly separated from my boat. I was quickly got spit clear of the drop and only had to worry about myself getting to shore. So with a big grin and laughter I swam to shore to empty my boat. I knew I had an even bigger drop to complete next and I didn’t want to have my confidence drop too low. I knew I had the skills and a boat durable enough, all I needed to do was get my focus back like I had on the first drop.
The grand finale is a great 20 ft drop that is great for practicing your “tuck” and bow control. You can keep you bow up on this drop but I saw potential for my skirt to pop off with the impact of the boat so I choose to bring my bow down more to try and soften the impact on my boat and my back. As I was the second to last one to run the drop I was feeling very good about the safety and the abilities of this boat handling the impact of the drop. As I paddled slowly down the river right against the wall approaching the drop I felt good. No matter what happened I was going to be fine, approaching the lip of the drop I do a slow forward stroke on the right side helping me control the side to side and vertical angles at the same time. Dropping the bow just enough and tucking I came out clean, upright, and in my boat! I was super stoked! Then I realized I wasn’t totally clear my skirt had come off on impact. I paddled quickly to the rocky shore where everyone was waiting and had my friend Flo hold my bow while I put my ultralight skirt back on.
Even after that final drop you can’t let your guard down just downstream of this is a strong little hole in a tight corridor. Which our group had a beginner kayaker that kept getting pulled back towards the sticky little hole but was lucky enough to make it out. He was happy, I was happy, and the whole group had huge smiles. Then the hike out came. Which wiped off a few smiles of the hardshell kayakers in the group, temporarily. For me though, I was able to keep on smiling. With the Valkyrie my load was light. I beat most of the kayakers out by at least 5-10 minutes. Enough time to dry out, roll up my packraft and throw it in the car. My new friends and I had quite an amazing day off. Good stories, with lots to laugh about, I could not have asked for more.
My Roses and Thorns from this trip.
Roses:
- The boat control and momentum control that I had in the boils of the first double drop were excellent.
- It was so easy to boof on the drops, bow control is key in steep creeks.
- The Valkyrie's weight compared to a hardshell kayak was amazing for a trip like this.
- Having the kayak community stoked to see me run the drops.
Thorns:
- I will be purchasing Alpacka's new HD skirt for class 5 waterfalls.
- I need to control my ego and not get too excited after the first drop.
- Trying to use a sweep and not a reverse sweep to control my angle before the drop.
Despite all the up and downs of the run I had a blast and would highly recommend this trip for class 5 paddlers that like a short and sweep waterfall lap. Also don’t worry about the shuttle it’s only a 100 yard walk.