The Futaleufu with Earth River: A Must Do!

Ted Tibbetts // January 2 // 0 Comments

Spoiler Alert: we paddled the Futaleufu River with Earth River Expeditions in Patagonia, Chile. And though we have gone with many commercial outfitters around from California to Maine to Costa Rica, Earth River surpassed ALL of our expectations. And then some.

I’m usually pretty good about saying no. 

Like “Do you want to try this $2800 guitar?”

“No.”

Because if I try it, I’ll want it.  And since I usually can’t afford high-budget items, I try to keep myself ignorant of what I’m missing.  

This works out most of the time because life often bombards us with superfluousness, excess, and the gaudy.

But I made a mistake with the Fu.  Turned out it wasn’t a mistake, but I certainly trapped myself.

It was the last day of my rafting season.  My school principal had once again insisted that I return to school at the same time as everyone else thus robbing me of those beautiful fall weekday rafting trips.

The Futaleufu River Patagonia Chile
Futa from “The Tower of Winds”

Rather somber (and a bit whiny, I confess) I slumped around the base literally dragging my feet before the drive back to my non-rafting season home.

“Want to see my pictures from my rafting trip the Futaleufu in Chile?” said our operations manager.

“Sure,” I said, really stalling my departure and, in doing so, condemning myself into an inevitable trip myself.

I oohed at the color of the water.

I ahhed at the rapids.

Earth River Treehouses on the Futaleufu River
Lodging at Treehouse Camp

And when I got to the picture of the treehouse dwelling you stay in at Lake of the Frogs, I swore.

Because I knew I was going to soon blow a lot of money booking my own trip.

Yup…it was a significant chunk of change…but worth every penny.

Many people often envy the time off that I get as a teacher.  And I can’t deny that having summers free to guide rafts comes as a great perk.  But there’s not a lot of flexibility that comes with that time.  I pretty much have to take it when the school calendar says. And usually, that’s when everyone else in the world travels, so airfare often forces us to leave at weird times with multiple connections.  Thus, we scheduled our trip for Christmas vacation.  

We left Maine a day before a snowstorm.  Flying out of Boston, we had to tackle the issue of the wee hours of the morning departure and a week of parking.  We found a hotel about 20 minutes from Logan where we could park our car for free in exchange for a night in a room.  This made the most financial sense, so the first leg of our journey involved Maine to Boston.

Departure

compression sack
Pack everything small!

We awoke early, shuttled to the airport, and wrangled through security.  Paranoid about our best paddling gear winding up in Uzbekistan whilst we arrived in Chile, we had employed our compression sacks and packed a week’s worth of outdoor clothing into carry-on bags.  We flew Boston-Miami-Santiago-Puerto Montt-Balmaceda,  Arriving in Balmaceda, Chile

The folks on Air Chile were super friendly and accommodating, we arrived a couple of hours before we were scheduled to meet our group.  So, we ordered lunch in really bad Spanish at a small cafe in the airport.

As we munched away, a man looking remarkably like one of Earth River’s owners approached the table.

Balmaceda Chile near Futaleufu River

“Are you Julie and Ted?”

Julie’s famous and used to being recognized, but I’m only known in obscure Shakespeare circles, so I was a bit taken back, but we admitted that yes, indeed, we are the Ted and Julie paddling couple from Maine.

“Well, I know that we were supposed meet in a couple of hours, but it looks like everyone’s here, so if you’re ready, we can hit the road!”

Chilean Flowers on the Futaleufu River

It turns out this was great because we were able to take the 4-hour trip through the Patagonia mountains in the daylight.  We twisted and turned, much to the dismay of Julie’s stomach but to the delight of our eyes, past mountains, lakes, and flowers in full summer solstice bloom.

To Confess or Not Confess?

We also had a chance to acquaint ourselves with the five other members of our group.  Our “cover” had already been blown.  Earth River, at the time, had offered discounts to raft guides, so they knew we were river guides and had told the rest of the group.  

Julie and I always debate this.  If you go on a commercial rafting trip, do you tell the guides that you are guides as well?  I say yes…they’re going to figure it out anyway.  Julie says no…you don’t want to sound like a “supercusty.”  Yo, guides out there…do you “˜fess up or not?

Which leads me to another point where I occasionally find myself conflicted.  We have gear and skillsets.  Why book a commercial trip at all when we could self-guide?

First, it can often be a hassle either getting gear there (in the future, we’ll have a bus, though!) or renting it.  Second, often with limited time, booking a guided trip saves ourselves from bumbling around finding put-in / take-out, the best apres-boating establishments, and so on.  Third, I love watching other professionals’ systems and stealing their best ideas.  Finally, we get a chance to meet some really cool people from around the world.

Futa traveling companions for our trip on the Futaleufu River

Anyhoo, our traveling companions turned out to be great people.  One mother from Colorado brought her two recently college graduated sons.  The other, clearly the favorite aunt, offered her nephews and nieces a trip to anywhere in the world when they graduated.  Her nephew had chosen the Futa, so there we were, a group with a shared passion for adventure.   

Lodge in Chile near the Futaleufu River

We arrived at a small lakeside lodge where we stashed our bags in beautifully decorated rooms and hopped in lake kayaks for a quick pre-dinner paddle.  Though the cloudy weather kept the temperature cool, we enjoyed the views and time to continue to connect with our new friends.

Afterward, we gorged ourselves on a delicious dinner, complimentary Chilean wine, and then retired early so that we could rise bushy-tailed and bright-eyed for our first day on the Futaleufu.

Arriving at the Futaleufu

Turns out, we didn’t need to be so mentally sharp. We still had a two-hour ride to get to the river, and then we didn’t jump right into Inferno canyon, we paddled duckies on some flatwater.  It didn’t qualify as rippin’ whitewater, but it was fun to finally get out of a wheeled or winged vehicle and into a paddled one.

Later in the afternoon, we arrived at our first campsite.  

Terminador Camp on the Futaleufu

(I have to confess, I might get some of my days jumbled up here.  We have pictures of the sites and many of the activities, but we didn’t have a Go-Pro at the time, so all of our pictures came from dryland.  I tried my best to be “mindful,” relish every moment and remember each detail.  But, full disclosure,  I may have blurred some of the days.)

Disclaimer aside, however, we arrived at the first campsite and, since Julie and I were the only “couple” the guides awarded us the “Honeymoon Suite” dwelling perched on the cliff overlooking the river. 

Damn.

I wanted to move in.

Earth River did an incredible job at each Futaleufu River camp to blend rustic style with creature comforts.  Each site boasted doorless flush outhouses.  Yes…that is correct.  On the path to the outhouse was a paddle.  On your way to the throne, you grabbed the paddle.  If the paddle was gone, you waited.  Thought it looked like an outhouse, the structure housed a fully functional gravity-fed flush toilet.

hot tub at terminador camp on the Futaleufu River
Kicking Back…

In addition to the outhouses, camps boasted wood-fired hot tubs and on-demand hot water showers.  Moreover, the “dwellings” provided enough wood screening for privacy but did not require actual screens because there were no biting insects to contend with.  After many springs of battling bugs on the “˜Nob, I was pretty excited about this!

daylight in front of three nuns on the Futaleufu River
“Three Nuns” in the background

The next day, after a feast of a breakfast, we headed up to the “Bridge to Bridge” section of the Futaleufu.  This mostly Class III-IV section allowed the team to get in sync as a paddling crew.  We also took our swim test here as the guides made us jump out of the boat and swim a section of Class II water.  The swim was easy.  The hard part was dressing:  the air temp topped 90…the water was 60.  I wore shorts–Julie wore a drysuit.

Cave Camp

secret Beach on the futaleufu

It was a fun section, and at the end of the day we beached at the famous “Cave Camp” which sits aside Zeta Rapid.  Zeta, a frothy, Class VI torrent, carves its way through some 40-foot ledges.  This location provides not only spectacular views of the rapid but also a large cave and a private beach accessed by crawling through a small passage in some rocks.

We began the next day with a Tyrolean Traverse across the Futaleufu River Zeta rapid.  We harnessed up, then pulled ourselves across the river on a pulley set-up rigged by the guides.  They seemed to thoroughly enjoy bouncing the cables up and down as we giggled and clung to our hats.  

Tyrolean Traverse over Zeta Rapid on the Futaleufu River
Tyrolean Traverse across Zeta Rapid

Treehouse Camp

Once on the other side of the Futa, we enjoyed more spectacular views on a morning hike up to the Lake of Frogs and Treehouse camp.  The treehouse system looked like a cross between Ewok Village and Swiss Family Robinson.  It truly was an architectural wonder.  The guides assured us that none of the trees had been harmed, and we scurried around the walkways and picked out our dwellings for the evening.  

We took in the views of the Lake and the Andes, ate, once again, a spectacular meal, and soaked our hiking muscles in the hot tub.  (That we had to cool down a bit first so we didn’t end up as soup!)

Ziplining the Futaleufu

ziplining the futa
Ziplining the Futa

In the morning, we hiked back down to Cave Camp to find a zipline set up across the river.  We took turns flying out across the river and tumbling into the air bubble softened tail of Zeta Rapid.  It didn’t matter that the water was a chilly 60 degrees because there was a hot tub set up in a bowl carved out in the river’s granite bank.  Once we warmed up in the tub, we climbed up to the ledge, and cliff-dove into the river, swam across to the zipline, and repeated the process until we decided we’d better save some energy to the afternoon rock climb.

El Torre de Viente

After lunch, we donned climbing harnesses and worked our way up to El Torro de Viente, or the Tower of Winds.  Then, one by one, we rappelled down the two-pitch face of rock.  I’m not a rock climber, but I believe “Two-Pitch” means that you have to stop at one point on the rappel because you’ve run out of rope and need to switch to another one.  There were a couple of tiny platforms rigged to the cliff face about halfway down.  Once I had arrived at one of the platforms, I clipped in to a safety line as the guide rigged another rope for the second part of my decent.  When the second rope was ready, the guide called me over to the other platform.  As I stepped, though, he suddenly said, “Stop!”

I think my heart went through my throat.

“Oh…you should see your face!” he giggled.  

Got me.

Champagne for New Year's eve on the Futaleufu River
Nature’s Fridge

Anyway, we finally all got to the ground, then showered up for a New Year’s Eve bash in the cave.  We had chilled some champagne in a cold spring, and, although as an early riser I often struggle to stay up late, the summer solstice in Chile gave us light until almost 10:00pm!   (I mean, really, does it get any better than that? New Year’s Eve in a campfire adorned cave on the Futaleufu River?! Sweet!)

We left Cave Camp the next day and paddled the Middle Canyon rapids, including Throne Room, then arrived at a small tributary to go “Canyoning.”  After washing our water shoes in some sort of anti-bacterial-fungal soap to protect the water system, we hiked, splashed, rock-hopped and occasionally swam up the creek taking in site sights of waterfalls, birds, and bright sun.

Back to Terminador Camp

Chilean Asada at terminador campe on the Futaleufu River
Chilean “Asada” BBQ

Our last day, we paddled the lower canyon, then feasted a traditional Chilean Asada as our final meal. It couldn’t have been more perfect: the weather had been sunny and 90 degrees all week. Just before dinner, a brief but burly thunderstorm rolled in and out, leaving us with a colorful rainbow. It was like the Futaleufu herself was saying goodbye.

I can’t say this was an inexpensive trip. But when I look back and think “was it worth it?” I respond with a hearty affirmative. We’ve paddled whitewater all over and I would say without hesitation that this trip ranks as the highlight of my experiences.

I found the rapids exhilarating, the guides skilled and attentive, the scenery spectacular, and I got to do it all with my lovely bride.

If you get a chance, make the same mistake and go.

About the Author Ted Tibbetts

Ted, a teacher, raft guide and carpenter, has been teaching high school English for over 20 years. A Milken Award winner and a Maine Teacher of the Year State Finalist, Ted loves working on his Skoolie, "Snug," and traveling around to splash in rivers.

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