Chile! Rio Claro and Pucon

Well I have made it to chile after lots and lots of traveling. I cant express how much i love it down here. It is an incredibly beautiful country and has of course some of the best kayaking in the world. We arrived after 10 hours of flying, then spent ALL DAY sitting at a bus station in santiago awaiting a bus down to pucon.
Gypsy Life!!
We caught our bus and 10 more hours later we arrived. Ian picked us up and we headed to the rio turbio.
After a day and a half of rest we got our kayaks and loaded up for an amazing trip north to the Rio Claro! The claro is an incredible river in a very unique basalt gorge. Its one of the most amazing places I've ever been.

A rediculous stout at the claro.

In the deep incredible gorges of the claro.
The Garganta del diablo "throat of the devil".

Nicole Firing down the stout.
Fusilli doing the same.

A still from my helmet cam. This is one of the most unique rapids i have ever run. Its incredible in the deep gorge of the claro, at some spots it will be flat water but only 2 feet wide. Very Cool.

After the garganta, you drop into gorges that are incredibly narrow, and a couple rapids are super narrow slides.

Thinhrum running the second one.


Here is my view of the same rapid.

After spending 4 days at the Claro, I must say it is easily one of my favorite rivers. Its warm, the drops are very clean and the canyon is one of the coolest places in the world. Me encanta este rio.
Here is the video I made from our trip down to chile, and the days we spent at the rio claro.

Rio Claro, Chile W/Demshitz from Fred Norquist on Vimeo.

We then headed back down south to Pucon. After some deliberation, we headed to the middle palguin.

Flying down the stout!

Here is a sweet video from our first middle palguin run. Big thanks to Immersion Research for making a sprayskirt that i dont worry about imploding.

Middle Palguin w/ Immersion Research from Fred Norquist on Vimeo.

We paddled a lot of the pucon goods for the next few days, the nevado, the upper palguin,the carhuello. We then decided to pack up our stuff and head south. Stay tuned for more from chile!

Fear Canyon of the Elaho

This is the final installment of Evan, Candace, and myself's trip to BC this summer. We headed for an evening run on the classic big water run in the upper squamish river valley drainage. As we bombed through some sweet rapids without scouting( Evan had done the run 3 years prior) Evan got stuck in a nasty hole and had an intense beatdown. I'll let the video tell the rest of the story.

Here is a photo of me running the last rapid on a later trip this summer. Photo by steve arns.

Fear Canyon Of the Elaho from Fred Norquist on Vimeo.

Thanks to my Watershed drybag, and a great amount of pure luck, my beloved Canon 7D was returned.

Tatlow Creek, BC

Tatlow is one of those creeks that i've been hearing of for a while, and although I never really knew exactly what is was like, I knew it was good. My assumptions were confirmed this summer when Evan Garcia, Candace Sanders, Steve Rogers and myself hiked for hours just to reach this beautiful place. And when I say beautiful, I mean it. Tatlow is a creek coming out of the high mountains near squamish, BC. If you know much about BC, you know its one of the wildest places around. Going up into the mountains in BC gives you that real "im out in the wilderness feeling". After hiking about 5 miles or so, on which I happened to forget water like a true unprepared gypsy, we made it to the river and drank a few CFS of water to fuel us. We were then greeted by some of the best rapids and waterfalls to be found. It was a great time even though I thought I might pass out from dehydration. Candace and Steve hiked into the creek right at the best stack of waterfalls with a great 40 ft slide in it. It was another great day on the river.

Check out this sweet Video Evan and I created from our day on the river.

Tatlow Creek, BC from Fred Norquist on Vimeo.

Evan after a couple miles of flat... about to tackle the steep hike up. Which proved to be very hard without water and in the summer BC heat.



Typical abandoned BC logging roads when hiking to the creek.



Me paddling below the infamous "wall drug" rapid.

The money shot, Evan and I dropping over the 40 ft slide.



Sliding down rocks is fun.

Another amazing photo by Candace!

BC mountain wilderness at it's finest.

All shots by Candace Sanders.

This summer's BC tour was one of the most fun kayak trips ive been on. We had a great time hiking around in the mountains and doing some really quality kayaking.