Run The Brown

Pucon still going strong

Sat, 9 Jan 2010 13:48:43 -0300

Sorry I havent been updating the blog...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!  LJ Groth had the fire in his eyes for this stouter and got me pretty fired up as well. 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. Candace Sanders Photos  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.   Anton Immler  Jordi Battel Pro  Todd Richey  Chris Baer  Adam Bixby  Brian Kirk  EG  Nate Dog Garcia 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.  Perfect level and we ran all that shit. Aniol lacing the stout at the put in.  Laying some treats.  Pinxo boofing a sticky one. Nico B ridin dirty.  Sergio Vidal. 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. Here is the Teaser 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

Pucon Spring Season Wrap-Up

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 14:34:15 -0300

A lot has happened amongst us extreme kayakers in the last 2 weeks in and around the little town of Pucon here in Southern Chile. When I last checked in I was recovering from a horrible line on the first descent of Salto Bellavista on the Carhuello. Since, I have man’d up and took out the stitches and have been getting after it as much as I can. And of course, I split my elbow wide open on the first day of paddling, so the healing process has been ongoing but slowly getting better.  gnar elbow Tons of Kayakers have arrived here in town, the most ever, and everyone is paddling everyday on the classics in the area with great water levels. The weather is amazing and the accomplishments in the kayaking world have been epic.   One of the biggest accomplishments was Steve Fisher’s descent of Salto Palguin (pictured above), the one drop everyone has looked at for the last 20+ years and no one has ever had the ganas to go for it! Steve stomped it as good as you could. Then Fisher and another huckster Anton Immler dropped middle palguin in a Duo!   Here is a link to the youtube video. Link to vid.  There are many more stories that you will be able to see upon the release of Rush Sturges’ next movie “Dream Result” coming out in Febuary 2010. Rush has a story to tell as well, I’ll let him tell it. Check out his blog River-roots.com  Ian going first on the massive stout salto bonito in argentina. So as for the rest of Demshitz... we have been relaxing pretty heavily getting runs on the Desahue Palguin and Nevados, mostly town runs.   Gringo John catching some air on the Nevados.  LJ browning on the Nevados.  Rodrigo on the Tdub crack drop Nevados.  Above the Tdub drop. adam bixby photo Some of the boys went to the south to Check out the Rio Florin which was stomping high water but good to go. Jordy “Battle Pro” on the 50 on florin. We ran this instead... Rio Canahue  I have been trying to stay in town and save money and get the goods around here before they run out.  Here are some shots from the drops above Tres Saltos  Thats just half the crew...  Evan on the 1st drop  Juanjo Ortiz showing us how to do it backwards!  Aniol “la Cobra” stomping it!  entering the 1st drop  A beautiful shot of the volcan Villarica that day it had a small eruption!  Czech boy Jakub running the 2nd salto.  Jake with the carnage award for the day!  Then we went back to the Plata with a good group from Spain. This picture of Aniol Serrasoles in one of the first drops on the Plata.   A cool shot of LJ Groth boofing the big one on the Plata.  On a side note, the one everyone is waiting for... there has been tons of carnage! We did a tally today of all the lost and broken equipment...and bones from the last two months. And here it is... 17 broken paddles between 11 people- some up to 3 for themselves. 9 broken and or lost kayaks. 5 hospital visits 11 injuries total. 7 first descents- one that resulted in injury (me). 31 swims! 8 broken and or lost cameras. and 7 car repairs. That comes out to at least $10,000 dollars in damages and a lot of sore bodies and egos... but thats part of the game I suppose! And as a wise Demshitz once said, “when you’re huckin’ the stouts, sometimes shit hits the fan!”    We have had some great parties and asados!  So now some good news. A group of us, led by fearless leader Rodrigo Tuschner, found an epic first descent the other day on the Rio Blanco, 2 hours northwest of Pucon. Dont flex too hard boys.... The run was first descented by TDUB a few years back on the lower canyon of the run. Our first d was on the upper section, which turned out to be super quality.   Evan on the first drop. The coolest thing about this run is the camping.     We camped out the night before in a sweet campground in the “valle magico” magic valley with Hot Springs and all the accommodations.   We scouted the run that night then hopped in the termas to relax and went to sleep with waterfalls in our dreams.  The next morning we hiked up about 2 k, put on and began to break it down. We were a little skeptical on the run at first because of the water level and the inability to scout a large portion of the run. When we got into the run we found fun runnable drop after drop, gradually increasing in size.EG layin treats as usual.  Rodrigo boofing the real!  Me sending a boof on a sweet little auto boof I wanted to call “Welcome to Zion”  very excite! A cool photo of the day by Rodrigo of me dropping into the final gorge on the upper Blanco. We soon arrived at the last big slide, about 30 feet tall that went super smoothly. LJ dropping the final slide we decided to call Salto Enfermo- aka sick drop- mainly because all of us have had some allergies for the last few weeks...and it was SICK!  Todd Richey dropping salto enfermo. All in all, a great success and a beautiful day.  Afterwards we finnished the run and paddled right to the hot springs for one last dip before venturing back to Babylon ( what we call Pucon now )  photos courtesy of Rodrigo Tuschner and Todd Richey The next day we decided it was time for...  The Demshitz Drop Lower Nevados  Rodriog went 1st- second time on this bad boy this season.  landed a little flat ouch...  I went next... doesn’t look too bad but was a hard hit and resulted in a bruised sternum...ouch! Then went Anton (broken paddle) LJ and Evan pics coming soon. good lines Then it was time for the Diablito...  EG charging the Diablito. All passed with good lines and then it was my turn. I first descented it last year with the boys and it claimed my paddle, this year it got me good.   This photo is of me pinned in the exit slot drop, my kayak below the surface, and my good good friend Rodrigo Tuschner saving my ass! Eventually I pulled my skirt and swam the drop and Rodrigo got my kayak out and we continued downstream. Epic carnage.  LJ stomping Daniels drop “the nutrients”  Rodrigo running the last big one. After the run we rushed back to Babylon for a full Ducky trip with Kayak Pucon. Fue un dia muy largo! Getting time to head south chao for now! check out EG’s blog.

Rio Carhuello 1st D

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 17:20:42 -0300

Twas the day before Thanksgiving and all through the casas no demshitz were stirring not even the ratas. And we awoke and we stumbled to our usual place, and ate some pollitos and tried to make way. Towards the river we went to harvest some goods, Carhuello said LJ and we strapped on our boots.  We got to the river and found a nice stout, we decided we’d run it but had forgotten about... our elbow pads. And going against Rodrigo’s advice that, “when you come to Chile, bring your Balls AND Elbow Pads”...dont be silly.   I boofed through the entrance muy suave indeed , then had a moment of prayer in a tiny eddy.   I prayed to the river god and asked to please let me pass, let me get through this shit without getting F’d in the ass” I peeled-out and stalled-out right on the lip, and all of a sudden... my plan went to shit.   I boofed pointing left then brought her back right, I tried and I tried with all of my might.   I fell through the seem and kept my eyes closed, I tucked and then waited and SMASHED ROCKS with dem bows!     Mike Goglin photo  Ejected I was and swimming around, I swam to the shore and stood on the ground.  My body was aching I knew I was hurt, I questioned myself, “how much was that worth...” When I arrived at the hospital they had the answer for me, 75 luca pay up compadre! This rhyme is lame but I think you can hear... dont run shallow shit without the right gear!” Demshitz life lessons... 1st D... kinda.... Salto Bellavista I like to call it “The Car-Wreck”. The first part of the run was fun....Todd Richey and LJ Groth photos...  The triple drop.     Todd Richey running a drop below the triple drop.  Looking back up at the triple drop.  8 puntos!  needless to say...I am taking the week off...

Rio Plata

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:05:50 -0300

The Rio Plata has been high on my list of rivers to do for a long time and the other day we formed a team for the mission and were blessed with nice weather and a really nice water level.   The Rio Plata is one of the only runs in Pucon that you have a steep little hike in and an epic battle through culihue hell ( bamboo) to reach the river. You basically hike up the run from lake Villarica and paddle back down to the lake.   The creek reminds me of the 2nd gorge of Lime in Colorado and kinda like Rogers creek in BC. Super low volume and stacked. The drops are unique and wedged deeply inside a vertical walled gorge.  First good one. Rio Plata Rodrigo Tuschner photos.  boofing  browning  Then as the run started getting really steep I decided it was a good idea to run this rapid...which turned out to be a tragic mistake after botching the top drop (not pictured river left) I was pinned behind a 6 foot tall curtain of water coming off the drop and immediately decided I was not going to get out without swimming. So I pulled my skirt...the boat filled up with water and my camera bag which was not clipped in...between my legs boofed out and fired up the next shit without me. We watched, and videotaped, my camera bag float off the next series of waterfalls.  I went as fast as I could and drained my boat and got my shit together and ran the 2nd half of the portage drop and got out to scout the next drops and look for the cameras. We all quickly fired up the first drop and again got out to scout the last in the series of drops. This one was one of the best drops on the run.  EG be doin’ it all day!  The Rio Plata is a classic steep creek! Jake on the last drop. My cameras remain MIA. Maybe they will turn up... might have to go back in there soon and look around.  Lesson learned: Clip in your shit before you eat shit and lose your shit!

Enough with Tres Saltos... seriously it’s getting excessive...

Sun, 8 Nov 2009 18:42:06 -0300

Demshitz is here, weathering the weather in Pucon. Lots of rain and cold, not the most motivating paddling conditions.... But thankfully we have this amazing waterfall to keep us entertained and we only have to kayak for a few seconds a day, then off to the bar! Its been a vicious cycle of partying and running Tres Saltos...   Trying the paddle toss for the 1st time and accidentally boofing ridiculously huge. I’ve run the waterfall 5 times now and Ive been in Pucon for 2 weeks!   My fifth time running the drop I finally got it figured out... photos: Aniol Serrasoles   A really bad-ass photo of Evan Garcia photo: Ian Garcia The paddle toss is the way to go... our group has already tallied up 10 broken paddles! As well as two lost kayaks... Pucon eats gear! Bring a couple spares if you plan on doing some hucking!  Our buddy Gringo fired that shit up as well one day pushing his limits with his biggest drop to date. Stoked!  The drop claimed my paddle this day. Which made me start throwing it. Pretty fun actually landing without a paddle.  Group shot.  Tyler Bradt and Rush Sturges rolled into town a few days ago and we found ourselves venturing back to this epic park n huck. What a day! A total of 13 laps on this big boy and Rush even jumped off the lip once.   The highlight of the day was when young Sol Giadorou decided to fire it up. First Female descent! Go Sol!  Then she went up and did it again!   More later. Hopefully Demshitz will paddle something new soon. Hasta Luego!  Jared