Kayaking in Patagonia
Family kayaking provides many challenges in the Chilean wilderness

Chile is populated with a long string of volcanoes, some of which are the most active in South America, resulting in natural hot springs all across Patagonia. Our inn was built on one of these marvels. We quickly repaired to the spring-fed pool overlooking the channel we had just paddled.

The next morning we set out early for our first of many open crossings. Our destination was the end of Quintupeo Fiord (42° 9'52.94"S 72°26'35.51"W). The fiord has a tight opening that leads to a wider fiord, approximately 4 1/2 miles deep with sheer rock walls and several powerful waterfalls dropping hundreds of feet to the water below. With 15-knot winds at our backs, we glided easily towards its end. And, we were able to paddle right up to the bottom of one waterfall (42°10'31.02"S 72°24'2.71"W). The power was immense and the spray and wind created by the falling water were impressive and a lot of fun for our daughter, a whitewater enthusiast.

After a bit of play we made camp at the end of the fiord just before the ebb tide. Because the surrounding mountains and rivers tend to silt up the ends of the fiords, the difference in tidal range can mean a portage of anywhere from a few feet to one mile. While in the fiords, the ebb and flow of the tides governed our schedule.

We explored a bit while Juanfé cooked up one of his signature hearty meals. As he served it up, he introduced McKinley to her “homework”, a large Nestle chocolate bar known as a “Trencito” (one for each day of the trip). Along with being a guide, Juanfé is also a father who, obviously, knows kids pretty well. We tucked into our sleeping bags as it started to rain thinking about what Juanfé told us earlier about camping in Pumalin. “It’s not about being dry, but about keeping things less damp than outside.”

We awoke to a misty fiord filled with new, powerful waterfalls. The transformation was stunning. The waterfall we had played under the day before was now a thundering cataract three times its previous size, pushing foam and waves out ¼ mile from the base. We paddled off into a headwind that gusted up to 20 knots with 1 ½ ft waves, at times feeling like we were not moving forward. A mid-40’s temperature felt much colder with the wind-chill. Slowly, we made our way up the fiord, hugging the walls in an attempt to get any possible break from the wind.

After about 45 minutes we noticed that McKinley was showing the signs of mild hypothermia. Her smaller mass and lower activity made her more susceptible. [Parental Retrospect: While we adults started the morning’s paddle nearly overheated from the kayak portages, she started out chilled from playing in the water.] We quickly rafted up, put some hand warmers in her drysuit, got on another fleece top under her drysuit, a cagoule over, an extra hat, gloves and some chocolate. Much to our relief, she quickly recovered and we continued to the mouth of the fiord and a substantial swell coming straight down the channel from the open ocean.

With the sheer cliffs present in most areas, setting off for the day is a commitment to stay on the water until reaching your destination. We pushed on around the headland and turned south towards our next destination, Cahuelmo Fiord (42°15'34.75"S 72°23'38.92"W). After a couple of hours paddling with two-foot waves on our starboard beam, we turned east towards the fiord and picked up a following sea to help us along.

The smell hit us just before the sound. Directly in front of us, at the mouth of the fiord (42°16'7.45"S 72°26'42.11"W), several hundred sea lions barked cantankerously, certainly a memorable way to end the crossing. We passed through the mouth and entered the long passage framed with sheer mountains and dueling waterfalls. We made for our camp, located in a grove by a river at the end of the fiord, at the Cahuelmo Hot Springs.

These springs consist of several deep pools carved into the solid rock by the edge of the river and are fed from a source that flows through little channels carved into the rock’s surface. By plugging the channel with clumps of moss, one controls the temperature. As we approached the pools to soak our muscles, we met two men who were fly fishing far up the river. They took Juanfé aside and quietly let him know that they had seen a large puma at the springs the day before that did not spook when it saw them. They warned that, “the little girl should not go anywhere alone.”

We spent two days at Cahuelmo hiking, exploring the river and, of course, soaking and playing in the hot springs. Driven by the extreme tidal range at the site, we planned our departure for the morning of day 5 at three in the morning. We awoke in the dark to a remarkably clear sky with millions of stars including the Southern Cross. We packed the kayaks, which we had staged at the predicted water’s edge. The water was just touching our bows as we set off in a slight mist. We had a surreal trip to the mouth of the fiord in the dark, with the sound of crashing waterfalls and barking sea lions.

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The pristine and dramatic beauty of Northern Patagonia offered an unbeatable stage for new and challenging experiences for us as paddlers, as a family and as individuals.

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As dawn broke transforming the sky from flat gray to pale rose, we turned south for our final day of paddling. We had a full day ahead, with 36 kilometers before our final camp. The water was glassy as we paddled close to the sheer rock wall with the snow-covered Andes in front of us. We could feel the cold winds drawn off the glaciers surrounding us. The grand scale of the mountains made it very hard to judge distance. I would pick a point that looked reasonably close, yet after 30 minutes of paddling would seem no closer. We paddled in the shadow cast by the mountains, watching the sun creep slowly towards us, grateful for the moment when its warming rays finally reached us.

We made our way to Huinay (42°22'35.32"S 72°24'56.06"W), a scientific research station. Huinay is also the location of the area’s only school. Most of the colonos’ children (about a dozen in all) attend a state boarding school located there. Juanfé knew the teacher, so we stopped to stretch our legs and meet the kids. We went into the schoolhouse, still in our drysuits, PFDs and sprayskirts. The kids acted as if it were not out of the ordinary. After an impromptu “show-and-tell” session and a few pictures, we were back in our kayaks to complete our day with a 15 km diagonal crossing to our destination at a colono farm at a little spot called Porcelana (42°28'40.72"S 72°26'23.27"W). We hauled the kayaks up above the high tide line and set up our tents in a pasture exhausted, but happy.

Our spot at the end of the fiord was surrounded on three sides by imposing, glacier-topped mountains, with the water shimmering in the foreground. We could look across the water to the Argentine frontier, a few short miles away. We grabbed our food and cooking gear and headed up the hill to the shed where we were to cook our dinner that we would share with the colonos caretaking the property. As we trudged up the hill, more than a little tired and sore, Juanfé indicated that he had a surprise for us. He took us on a hike through several pastures and on to a small trail running alongside a fast-moving glacial river. Further on we could see a steaming pool in a small river paralleling the icy stream. We beheld a hot river with pools leading back upstream to the source. The closer one got to the source, the hotter the pool became. Juanfé left us to soak and we spent the next couple of hours jumping from hot pool to icy stream and back. We returned to the shed in time to watch the sunset reflected off the mountains to the East and enjoy dinner and our last bottle of “homework”.

The next morning we woke early, packed up and met up with the colono fishing boat that Juanfé had chartered to take us back to Hornopirén. We secured the kayaks on the deck of the rough-built, brightly-painted craft powered by a truck engine and settled in for the trip back along our route of the past five days. We had a completely different view of the waters we had so recently paddled and it gave us time to collect our thoughts and ease back into civilization.

The trip left us both satisfied and yearning for more. The pristine and dramatic beauty of Northern Patagonia offered an unbeatable stage for new and challenging experiences for us as paddlers, as a family and as individuals. The combination of beauty, challenge and the variety of the trip was a dream come true. As we review our route on the chart, we can’t help but wonder about the next fiord to the south, and the next…

Marcel Rodriguez is a paddler, kayak builder and Greenland-Style kayak instructor from Portland, Oregon.