Traveling Water Nerd

The Río Maichin’s closest well-known town is Pucón and it’s located in the forested mountain range of the Andes in Chile. To arrive in Pucón, I took a 6 hour bus ride from Puerto Montt where I ended my previous journey from the Futa. If you’d like to read about my time in the Futa and travel logistics, I highly recommend checking out my previous post where I go in-depth with my experience in Patagonia. There are many companies you can book bus tickets from so if you decide to make the trip yourself, you’ll have lots of options to choose from. I highly recommend booking these tickets ahead of time, because they do tend to fill up within 48 hours of departure. I booked this kayaking trip with Pucón Kayak Retreat. It was a special guide week promo where they provided sleeping, eating and kayaking arrangements for a week. You’ll see the next few posts will contain some PKR information as well.

I unfortunately can’t speak on the quality of Pucón, although my brief impression of the mountain town is certainly one of beauty. It’s right next to a gorgious blue lake and the other side of the town borders an ominous active volcano. I say ominous because no matter the time of day, you can see smoking rising from the top of the mountain. One thing I will say about Pucón is that it reminded me of Hood River, a small town in the PNW of the US. I got this feeling because the town both felt isolated and modernized for its size.

Now let’s move on to the good part. The river, Río Maichin, and my incredible experience there. The put-in is about one hour and a half from Pucón and that’s awesome because there’s so much to do in the area and proximity is always something to keep in mind. The river is incredibly clean and clear with mountains surrounding your perspective in a 360 view. For any kayakers out there, this is definitely a class IV river and you should go here for an awesome creeking opportunity. With one class V portage, I would recommend this river to any class IV boater that desires this type of experience. It starts with simple class III rapids that provide a nice build-up to the class IV’s later in the section. The trees along the side of the river provide a wonderful atmosphere that seemed to take me out of reality. If I didn’t know any better I’d have thought we were kayaking an explored region of the world. Not only were we the only ones out there on the river at the time, but the river provides an absence of industrial sound that is extremely peaceful. No cars, trains, or airplanes. Only your group and nature. That’s exactly what it felt like. It felt like we were tackling a red bull production’s team idea where we’re stranded and we have to kayak out to survive. The end of the river is what made the trip so incredibly special. After a long while of creeking, you drop down into a canyon of beauty and grace. There’s no special rapids here, only beauty and grace. On every side of you there’s mini little waterfalls that you can kayak under with sheer cliffs cutting off the view from the outside world. This specific part of the trip made it into my top 10 moments of the week and one day I hope to return to re-experience the magic of the Río Maichin.

The photos on the first row I took with my GoPro, showcasing the wonderful canyon section of the river. The middle photo is my attempt at looking up into a small waterfall, although the photo doesn’t do the experience justice. Photos never do. The middle bottom photo is the kayaking squad that day, with the exception of our instructors Boyd Ruppelt and Lucas Varas. I’m in the middle left in blue with Liam to my left, Thomas to my right and Asher on the far right. Especially good energy with these fellas and it was a pleasure sharing the water with them.