==Season 2023/24==
*2024-Feb-23 / 1 day / Packrafting / SOBO / Lauren & Seb
* 2024-Jan- 14 to 2024-Jan-16/ 3 days/hiking/SOBO/ 33h/ 33h-b/33hRio Ibáñez was a moderately fast flowing and enjoyable ride. A welcomed change of scenery, we paddled down reddish-brown canyons with the glacier view of Cerro Castillo behind us. It was a/ 33h-P/Paulinaremote and beautiful little stretch.
At first, I wanted to do RR, but as There was one tricky spot in the recent reports about upper part of the river crossing where not very encouraging, I decided to play it safelty, so I just mixed some sections. I started in Villa Cerro Castillo, till X 33h [ 5.5/554] it was a very peaceful, nice trail, with beautiful views on Cerra Castillo. There were some fence crossing, but not very annoying. After the intersection, so once I joined the road XAt -725, it was less interesting, walk on a gravel road. I think this part of RR is better to hitch-hike ( it's possible and not very difficult to catch a car on this way). Once I reached the big lakes ( beautiful views!) and some wanderful camping spots [ S 46.17790 W 072.32049] between Lago Alto and Lago Lapparet13556, I took 33h-b72. At 15561 we stayed on the beginning the trail was l crossing a forest used by locals as wood supplyvery left, but later ( around going down between the place where it joined 33h-a), rocks to avoid being pushed to the landscape was amazing! Especially outside of the part with lakes and settlers. The last section was bend on 33h-01A. The cannion of Rio Claro and later the waterfall are beautifulright, but for some hikers a long distance on gravel road on this section can be annoying so it's probably better to hitch-hike ( not a lot the rest of cars but still possible). I bought my ticket for ferry from Puerto Ibanez to Chile Chico without any problem 1h30 before the ferry departure. The mix of these 4 sections + hitch-hiking it's a good option for bad weather or high river level on RR. Some parts are very beautiful, and the less interesting parts ( long distances on gravel roads) it's possible to cover by carwas easy going.
The entire way the deep water channel is quite narrow and hard to see in the murky water. Follow the outsides of the meandering river to try and catch the mainstream most of the time, but you will still have occasional ground contact.
At the river-out point, stick to the turquoise waters to avoid the sandbanks and approach the MR. For the portage, we had decided not to deflate the packraft but it was a painful mistake for our big 2-seater. We got a bunch of micro holes from the thorny bushes which we only realised later when disinfecting our boat.
Shortly before Puerto Ingenerio Ibáñez, winds got too strong and we were not able to paddle the last U-turn as it pushed us against the riverbanks. We got out at -46.28599, -71.96618, deflated, crossed the airstrip and made our way to town.
*2023-Dec-18 / 1 day / Packrafting / SOBO / RR / Tom Pieper
