Rafting Into History on the Rio San Pedro

Back in 1992, long before we even thought about visiting Chile, Richard's cousin Peter Gibbs returned from a two week river trip where he made the final descent of Chile's Bio Bio River before the construction of the Pangue Dam created a huge reservoir that destroyed the incredible rapids along the river forever. So-called progress is rapidly making its way into other areas of the country. This time we are making the final commercial descent of another river, the Rio San Pedro, one day before the dam builders close the corridor for blasting in preparation for a new hydroelectric project.

We started our expedition by crossing the Rinihue Lake in one of Kayak Chile's pink paddle rafts with our river guide, Zorro, calling the tune. Lago Rinihue is drained by the Rio San Pedro and will become part of the future reservoir providing storage for the new hydroelectric project.

At the mouth of the river we met up with another guide, Raymundo, where some of us transferred from the raft into inflatable kayaks, called "duckies", to float through the easier Class II and Class III rapids in the first part of the descent.

Henry and Richard shared a ducky. Guide Ben May, the owner of Kayak Chile, accompanied us in his hard shell kayak just in case we flipped our ducky and needed a recovery in the middle of the river.

James and Cristian rode solo in their duckies.

We made it through the upper rapids without incident.

Then we stopped along the shore, deflated the duckies, and joined Zorro in the paddle raft for the bigger rapids. Zorro gave us our instructions and we practiced quickly responding to his commands to steer the boat and not fall out.

Susan moved over to Raymundo's safety raft to be the photographer of the trip.

Henry thought rafting was the more fun than any other sport he'd ever tried.

At the lunch break, Zorro showed us an edible riverside plant like a cross between celery and rhubarb that the Mapuche people use in their diet.

Rebecca gives you her impression of the flavor.

The Rio San Pedro is known as the "Futaluefu of the North" because of its Class III+ rapids. The actual Futa is Chile's premiere kayaking river farther south near the active Chaiten Volcano.

As we crashed through the largest of the rapids, we were happy for our wetsuits and for Zorro's superb boat handling skills.

At the dam site all the construction workers stopped what they were doing to watch us and wave as we swept past. We felt mixed emotions and could barely respond because we were too busy paddling around the rocks in the big drop where the dam will be built.

After a run of a dozen exciting rapids in 15km, we raised our paddles in a group cheer to the our memories of the unforgettable Rio San Pedro!