My journey began in the fishing town of Puerto Montt, a three-hour
flight south from
Santiago, where I met my fellow rafters. We were
an interesting group. A banker and his wife, three lawyers, a
biology teacher, an entrepreneur, and an entire family, its members
ranging in age from 15 to 74. One group member was six months
pregnant. From there we caught a tiny plane for our flight south
along the coast - the massive 800,000-acre Pumalin Park stretched
out beneath us on the left side of the plane - all old-growth and
fjord. We landed in the village of Chaiten, a place more outpost
than town, and headed into the mountains. A three-hour drive later
(amazingly without passing a single car), we found ourselves at
Earth River's private base camp, 300 acres of meadows and forest
perched 100 feet over the Fu, dominated by the imposing Tres Monjas
(the "Three Nuns"), a 7,000-foot mountain topped with three
towering granite spires. The camp comes equipped with showers, a
kitchen, tents, and a wonderful wood-burning hot tub, but once I
crested the bluff and saw the Fu waiting below, nothing else seemed
to matter. The river was all I could think about.
The first thing I noticed was the color. In its more tranquil
spots, the Fu is a deep blue-green - like the crayon color a child
might imagine for water. When the canyon walls close on the river
like a vice, the water mixes with pure white froth to become almost
a pastel seafoam-green, the kind you see on hot rods.
The river itself boasts 12 Class Five rapids, the wildest rapids
considered safe to raft. These rapids, with names like Inferno,
Purgatorio, and Terminator, demand to be taken seriously.
Terminator is the epitome, says David Kashinski, a river guide who
has spent 14 years guiding boats through the
Grand Canyon, Mexico,
and
Belize, and now guiding the Fu. The consequences are huge.