Sorry I havent been updating…Ive been working with Kayak Pucon everyday taking people kayaking rafting and ducky rides!
Well, I spoke too soon when I decided the Pucon spring season had ended. A week or so after my last post we received a few days of heavy rains! Which brought everything back to desirable levels and flooded rivers in the south, so nothing better to do than just stay in Pucon!
So where we last left off was on the Rio Nevado. I had an epic swim through “El Diablito”. I was pretty sore for a few days from a big hit on the Demshitz drop that day as well, bruised sternum hurt for 2 weeks. So, I took one day off and the next day was the First Ever Upper Palguin Extreme Race! I almost bailed on it but decided to paddle through the pain and sack up and get my race on! Keegan Grady ended up with the win beating out oh so greasy smooth and fast Evan Garcia and Aniol “la Cobra”Serrasosles, who had a commanding lead but blew it in the first drop! que pasO Cobra?!?
The first drop seemed to be the deciding rapid for the win.
I had a really fun first heat with Chilean hero Miguel “Zoro” Ruiz and Spaniard legend Juanjo Ortiz. These two powerhouses got out in front of me right off the start but they were no match for this Diablito! My next heat was equally fun with La Cobra and the boss, Ian Garcia. Aniol and I had it in for Ian and the plan was to take him out… and we did. Ian got boxed in as I went for the pass on the Cobra in the first drop and Ian pitoned got worked and swam! Great Success! After which I could not catch up to the Cobra as he taunted me the entire way to the finish line, fuckin’ Cobra!!! So after the race we all celebrated heavily I think someone ate a candle in Mamas… maybe it wasn’t that night… All in all epic first ever Upper Palguin Race, can’t wait for next years!!! Thanks Ben May of Kayak Chile for putting on the event!
Vigorous paddling seemed to help my injury… and so the next day we went to the Puesco, a run that consists of paddling 9 km of pure boofing and maneuvering through endless boulder rapids! I was feeling nice and sore after that. Then we hit some runs on the Desaghue for what we thought would be the last time… and soon it was time to go back and clean up my mess on the Nevado. This time joined by the likes of LJ Groth Todd Richey Evan Garcia Battel pro and the Swiss boys Ron Fisher Severino and Dude i cant remember his name.
Todd Richey running the Demshitz Drop
What a nice day for a huck! And this time around I stuck that Diablito shit…for the first time, 1 for 3, that rapid made me work for it! Evan and I got some sweet helmet cam footy with the New GoPro HD, blue angeling a little too close sometimes but what great shots we got! You will be able to see the footy from this year in our next Demshitz movie… “Dashboard Empanada”, it’s gona be good! Heres a little teaser. Mostly Chile and California and some East Coast USA.
So we said Good bye to the Nevado for the season, happy to have left it on a good note.
And then it was Christmas day, probably the scariest day of the year for us extreme yakers’ living in Pucon … Christmas to us “Puconinos” means Todo Palguin!!! For all you non spanish speakers Todo means ALL and when you put that word in front of Palguin, we all get a little twitch in our cojones. This Christmas we did the most complete Todo Palguin in the history of kayaking the Palguin. Kayakers have been calling out the Todo Palguin for years, but it has only ever been nearly completed once by Brennan Guth who unfortunately drowned that same day in the very last rapid, now named Brennans drop. His rapid we don’t even really consider running mostly out of respect but also, its a bad ass rapid. So we decided to put in at the very top and scout the recently first D’d Salto Palguin, the very first drop on the run and the most stout for sure!
Push-ups preparing for the hit. I was so fired up…I was nearly hyperventilating just considering it, and I actually drank a beer to calm my nerves… LJ drank two… one was a booty beer from an ejection on the Nevado two days before.
And there she is… pretty good reason to be nervous…So there Demshitz was, at the top of one of the most ridiculous stouts in the lands. Thankfully LJ went first and showed me how to do it, with a perfect line, paddle still intact, and in the boat, what more can you ask for?
I followed right behind him roosting through the technical lead in and boosted a boof off the 80 footer and went flying through the air and was swallowed by the vail. Chris Baer photo check out his blog!
I landed a little corkscrewed to the right but bow down and got what I like to call, Hienz 57’d. What feels like the hand of God pounding the bottom of your kayak to get you to eject as it would feel to be ketchup smoothly exiting a giant bottle of Hienz 57 ketchup! My paddle smashed in two and I went deep! I popped up elbow pads around my wrists, practically unscathed, very excited to be at the bottom in the safety of my buen amigos.
I pulled out my breakdown paddle pounded out the massive dent in the bottom of my kayak and continued with a group of 12 down the river. We bebopped our way through the familiar upper section, with one skirt implod, from LJ freewheeling the 20 footer, and we soon arrived at the Exportacion! This rapid is about as close to being flushed down a toilet as you can get!
And in the words of local Rodrigo Tuschner “its not a portage anymore!” Evan the only one with carnage here, broken paddle, 3rd time for him on that same rapid!
Sweedish heart-throb Anton Immler pluggin in!
LJ using hand paddles. why not?
We all crashed through and continued downstream. We portaged the next two drops in the middle, Turvina and Boof to Swim. We decided it was a little too high for these two. And then, there we were at the top of the classic 70 stout on the Middle.
About to set the record for most bitches to fall off her in one day! Ian Garcia of course going first on this famous waterfall, he first descented when the waterfall changed in 2006 from a 30 to a 70 , when the old possibly more bad ass 50 footer below collapsed and drained a massive pool creating the 70 we all know as one of the best big waterfalls there is! Ian had a steezy line but somehow got ejected and broke his paddle!
Always nice to see right before you are about to go… This year the entire Garcia family was here for Christmas and Mom and Dad got to watch all the boys paddle the shit together, ok…see we celebrate Christmas with our families sometimes… and so…The huckfest continued and some boys couldn’t wait and fired it off as I looked back to see LJ once again contemplating madness!
The same look I had recently seen above Salto Palguin had come back into his eyes and he announced he was going to run the lead in 10 footer to the 70. Which has not been done since the rapid changed.
This one is another one of those rapids we always talk about doing but opt for the seal launch below it in fear of getting beat down and god forbid swimming the 70 footer! LJ lined it up at the top, splashed a little water in his face, and charged what we call “Stout 10”.
Wouldn’t you know it, he boofed the shit out of it stuck it so good he had time to look up throw up the brown spin around and plug the 70.
This dudes got the steeze and the ganas, and ladies, hes single! After seeing LJ crush stout 10 without much hesitation I marched up above and decided to give it a go. I had what I thought to be a perfect line but was a little too far right and the nightmare struck.
Todd Richey photo
I got backendered and held in the hole of Stout 10 for what felt like minutes. I struggled to roll and felt as if I was being sucked off the 70 footer upside down!
Safety crew ready…
Finally I rolled up and gathered my whereabouts, still on line with plenty of time I lined up the stout and had one of my best lines ever.
At the bottom I raised up my hands to the River God and thanked him for the rights of passage and grabbed a seat for the ensuing huckfest.
All the boys had great lines, paddle tossing, plugging, boof stomping.
EG/After all was done we had 4 more swims a lost paddle and two broken paddles.
We paddled out the rest of the run and completed the most run Todo Palguin descent. 5 paddles claimed, 5 swims (one skirt implode…) and 12 high on life dudes.
The next day I took the day off with a good case of waterfall neck. LJ went to work I’m not sure how… and then it started raining….TURBIO!!!The Turbio is a pure volcanic run that drains right off Volcan Villarica, the rocks are sharp and the water is cold but at the right level its one of the most fun runs around…. kinda like OBJ 
EG ready to stout!
Our group this day was pretty big with some Chilean boys Nico Buenaventura and Sergio Vidal and the Spaniards Battel Aniol and Pinxo and gringos Todd Evan and I.
Aniol lacing the stout at the put in.
Laying some treats.
Carnage…A little Jason Hale “Grab that Bitch”
Que lindo el Turbio Todd Richey photography
So with more water in town we went back to Nevado with high ass water, and a week or so later ran Demshitz and Diablito again and got some more laps on Desghue and Puesco… what a season it has been here in Pucon!
Keegan Grady riding switch off demshitz!
We then went to the south and found high water and only ran Florin. Some of the boys stayed in Pucon and went back to Salto Palguin. Now 9 people have run the Salto Palguin and 5 out of 9 have swam. Even bad ass Evan Garcia got ejected… you should’ve seen his face too! Check out his blog its been flowing good! EGCREEKIN.BLOGSPOT.COM EG and I are teaming up on Dashboard Empanada. So since all the shit runnings I have started to settle down a little and am now working with Kayak Pucon a lot. We do sometimes two trips a day, herding kayaks duckies and rafts down the lower Liucura and Trancura rivers. Its a beautiful place to work and equally nice for a first timer on the river. Check out Kayak Pucon online. We also just finished up an excellent “Run the Shit” trip. 4 kayakers learning the rivers of the area with the help of Rodrigo, Pucon native, showing them the ropes!
We all had a good time paddling with these boys, and I encourage anyone looking for a care free bad ass paddling vacation to consider booking a “Run the Shit” trip with Kayak Pucon! Ok so Im off to work. Soon we are visiting the south to paddle something… Check back for updates, peace….DAMSHITZ/BLOG
DAMSHITZ THE MOVIE Click “DAMSHITZ” to watch the trailer/treaser
