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* '''Start Date to Finish Date (use Format YYYY-MMM-DD) / Duration in Days / Hiking or <span style="background-color:aqua;">Packrafting</span> / Travel Direction (SOBO for Southbound or NOBO Northbound) / Chosen Route and/or Option Name (RR for Regular Route) / Names or Alias'''
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<nowiki>* '''</nowiki>'''Start Date to Finish Date (use Format YYYY-MMM-DD) / Duration in Days / Hiking or <span style="background-color:aqua;">Packrafting</span> / Travel Direction (SOBO for Southbound or NOBO Northbound) / Chosen Route and/or Option Name (RR for Regular Route) / Names or Alias'''<nowiki>'''</nowiki>
If you are packrafting, put the above info into HTML tags like this (if you follow a hiking route for part of the way, highlight only "packrafting", as above): <!-- IF YOU COPY FROM THIS EDITING VIEW, YOU NEED TO USE THIS TEMPLATE (* TRANSFORMS INTO BULLET, ''' MAKE IT BOLD, WHAT IS ENCLOSED IN <> MAKES IT BLUE):* <span style="background-color:aqua;">'''YYYY-MMM-DD / X days / Packrafting / SOBO / RP / Your name'''</span>--><nowiki>* <span style="background-color:aqua;">'''</nowiki><span style="background-color:aqua;">'''YYYY-MMM-DD / X days / Packrafting / SOBO / RP / Your name'''</span><nowiki>'''</span></nowiki>. If you follow a hiking route for part of the way, highlight only "packrafting".
= Overview =
* General Recommendations: The section is best paddled between January and May. The primary danger would be a high and fast river, typically most common early in the season, or after heavy rain. The river can only be paddled westwards.
==Season 2024/25==
<span style="background-color:aqua;">'''2025-02-11 to 2025-02-12 / 1day / Packrafting / SOBO / regular (partly) / Thijmen Scholten'''</span>
* Water level was low at least 1m under the algae line on the rocks
* Due to low waterlevel Rapid 7.9/168 was dangerous because all of the current went underneath strainers. So I walked.
* Read river early and go were most water goes, to avoid hitting rocks.
* It's beautiful!! Alot of small little rapids.
* Many campspots next to river and good fishing.
* After rapid 23.4/135 There is a split in the river take left even though it's shallow! I got suck into strainers and had to jump and abandon my packraft that was sucked under. I think with high water levels you can easily avoid the trees but now with low water levels it's impossible.
* <span style="background-color:aqua;">'''2025-02-11 to 2025-02-13 / 3 days / Packrafting/ SOBO/ RP / Tomáš&Natalie'''</span>
BUS INFO: From Futaleufu, we tried to take the 10am bus to Chaiten with the plan to get off at Puerto Ramírez, but it was full. Apparently the 6am bus was full too (Buses every day @ 6am & 10am). You need to reserve at least a day in advance. The ticket office opens at 10am and is closed Sundays, expect a queue in the morning. They said this does not apply for the bus to Palena (Tuesdays 9am & 430pm, Thursdays 430pm)- for that you just show up at the terminal. We did not want to wait, so we hitched: it took us 4 cars and 5 hours. We arrived in Palena 18:00, so we slept in a hospidaje here: -43.61753, -71.79944. 40 thousand for two with an early breakfast.
Buses from Chaiten to Palena go daily at 12 and 16:30. From Palena to Chaiten they go at 6 and 11. To Valle California (27H Option 1) Monday and Thursday at 8 and 16, going back an hour later. Buses that go along the Palena river to El Tranquilo (-43.73151, -72.16549) leave Monday at 8:30, Wednesday and Friday at 11 (going back at 11 and 14 respectively). This bus could be used to shorten the Palena or used for the first 5 km of 27H.
ROUTE:
Walking from Palena, you do not need to cross the bridge, there is a staircase to a beach on the left just before the bridge. What others said about the river largely holds, we had even lower water than most reports. The river was probably half a meter under its maximum (in narrower places more in wider less). At the beggining ground contact was a concern, but could mostly be avoided. In the second section, there are indeed trees, but largely easy to avoid and there is not that many of them compared to 17P. The first section goes through a beautiful gorge. In the second, there are magnificent pointy mountains on the left. We wondered if they have ever been climbed, given their relative remoteness, namelessness and moderate prominence and altitude (~2000m). Side streams for drinking were pretty regular until km 85.5, after that until the sea you can easily got 10–15 km between drinkable accessible streams.
Entel internet good in Palena and La Junta, also about 20 km downstream from Palena, there must be a tower as our e-mails got randomly downloaded. In La Junta, we spent too much time shopping, so ended up camping 50 m downstream from the takeout, where there is a table, but it probably belongs to someone.
As for the rapids:
- In 4.2, there is a tree trunk in the middle, complicating it, but one can go left of it. More complicated in shallow water as your line gets narrower.
- We walked 7.9 as the main current runs you into willows.
- 23.4 was easy on the left, it is a rock garden (two, actually, with a break in the middle). Class II at this river level, it could be harder with more water.
- 47.0, where mad nomad capsized, is an uncomplicated class II rapid with high (~1m) waves if you manage to hit the V between the trunks. However, it then pushes you against a head wall with some speed, so remember to exit it in time. We did not and hit the wall at a slow speed (via backpaddling), regained strength in an eddy along the wall, and then exited- but it wasn't easy.
Overall we took our time with this section, late mornings and early evenings but it was very nice and the landscape was surprisingly beautiful - try to get a weather window!
Nat's Notes:
-Jen Ni's 5 part Wiki post is a great general overview, a must read.
-At this point in time I would not say post Rio Frio was "fast flowing", maybe only moderately fast in the bits with rapids. There was a lot more padding than expected, I think we averaged only 6kph.
-Loved the mountain scenery!
* <span style="background-color:aqua;">'''2025-Jan-15 to 2025-Jan-17 / 3 days / Packrafting / SOBO / RP / Davide Materia'''</span>
I started the palena bridge the morning of 15th of January. Right from the beginning I realized the water level was unusually low, in the first 200m I already had to get out of the packraft to walk on the riverbed. It got better afterwards and along the river I never had to portage anymore for the next five days. The first day there was not much of a log problem, this deteriorated the next days with always more and more logs present in the river bed. The low water level allowed to see most of them but also made so that some branches of passages were completely blocked by logs. In some section you might have a window as tight as 2m to pass, with the rest of the width being blocked. Still, I would consider the river viable and safe enough to be packrafted for the whole duration, but I don't know for how much longer of the dry season this will be valid.
As for the days in details:
15th-palena to S 43,670578° O 72,094896°, camped on the eroding cliff of the riverbed a bit further from the erosion border. The whole day was characterized by strong headwinds which made packrafting the ~0-gradient sections of the river quite unpleasant, East-bound wind of up to 25kph, this was definitely the worst day wind wise
16th-Nothing to mention here in particular. Camped again on the erosion cliff at S 43,729461° O 72,342124°on a grazing property after asking to the owner. Wind had picken up against me a bit later than the prior day and we're much calmer, still I didn't feel like forcing my way through them to la Junta and so I camped a bit after the union of Rio palena with Rio frio.
17th- easy day with almost no wind since the river goes SOBO. Pleasant and quick packrafting, I only did half the day to stop at camping agua vida in La Junta, which replenished my strengths and allowed to clean up clothes and body. Furthermore, it has easy access to the river so that I didn't have to pack everything and unpack, I just carried the packraft to the river with all the gear already in the cargo.
I continue with the rest of the report in the 28P page
* <span style="background-color:aqua;">'''2024-Dec-08 to 2024-Dec-09 / 2 days / Packrafting / SOBO / RP / Roman'''</span>
Route: Did the normal RP route
Took a bus from Puerto Montt to Chaitén at 07:00 AM and there is a connecting Bus to Panela where you arrive at 20:00 PM.
Camped at the opposite site of the Bridge, Camp, River In {27P} [2.3/194] as there was a car and the Camp spot was semi nice. You can access the other side via a small path directly after the bridge towards palenda on the right here: -43.608988, -71.817478. The water level I wild say high. As this is very subjective find here a picture for reference: https://imgur.com/a/cli2uGn
I would consider myself a beginner - this is my 2nd season on the GPT with a open packraft (Amfibio Delta MX).
I was very cautious but all rapids were doable and I only scouted Rapid {27P} [4.2/178] and Rapid {27P} [23.4/135]. The previous descriptions regarding "take them left right etc. are all valid and i followed them.
Camp after day 1 here: -43.745365, -72.270947 which was a perfect nice flat grass spot.
Day 2 no special remarks - camped in La Junta at Camping and Cabañas Vientos del Sur can reccomend.
Overall the river was easy, really nice, beautiful and fast flowing. Had a average of 5.4 km/h and 6.6 km/h.
Contact: https://linktr.ee/RundW
==Season 2023/24==
I was prepared for all the difficult rapids up to the ferry-boat and I first scouted the Rapid {27P} [4.2/178] and the Rapid {27P} [23.4/135], which I had read are the most tricky ones. In the end, I passed all of those paddling but the next day, I was surprised by Rapid {27P} [47.0/104]. I tried to avoid the shallow water on the right and I went to the center but I soon realized that was the worst possible line I could choose! I paddled over a huge tree trunk perpendicular to the flow but the huge wave formed right after the trunk, capsized me! It seems the left side of the river would be the best choice. Anyway, better scout this one first because there are trees everywhere. There were a lot of other wild rapids all over the river, where I had to focus to keep the raft perpendicular to the waves but I achieved that and I had no other problems. I could usually identify submerged trees from the little wave formed around them, so I was able to avoid them. It was only a couple of times that the water was too shallow, so I had to disembark and lift the bow of the raft to carry it over the little water that was flowing over the rocks.
* <span style="background-color:aqua;">'''2024 Jan-19 to 2024 Jan-23 / txrx / Palena to Puerto Raúl Marín Balmaceda (27P & 28P) / 5 Days / Party of 4'''</span>
I want to thank everyone who contributed to this article. All the information provided here was very useful to plan and prepare for the trip. As a packrafting beginner I absolutely loved this route. Here's a list of comments that might be useful to use as reference:
- We had 5 sunny and hot days with many moments of strong headwinds. Never underestimate how taxing is to paddle against the wind on a packraft, optimize your itinerary to paddle in the calmest moments of the day.
- It took us about 32 paddling hours for Palena to Port RMB.
- At the water level we had it was very easy to find a suitable camping spot along the whole river.
- Checking the tide charts was very useful to paddle with less effort on the last 25km to the sea.
- At the end, the normal route takes you through the Garrao Canal into the Pitipalena Estuary. We had a calm morning so we decided to continue on the Palena River, access a small canal east of the Isla de Boca and end up landing near "Mirador 2". From there we walked a trail that took us to the town in a little bit less than an hour.
* <span style="background-color:aqua;">'''GPT 27 and 28P/ Alto y Bajo Río Palena/ Packrafting Route / 2024 Jan-02 / 4 days / Jordan Jennings'''</span>
The descriptions in the writings below are very accurate in describing Rio Palena. My only comment is to describe the rapids a little more - all but one rapid are class II wave trains - not complicated. The rapid shortly after the ferry at c 22km has more obstacles and requires the choosing of a “line”. Was not difficult.
* <span style="background-color:aqua;">'''2023-Dec-04 / 2.5 days / Packrafting / SOBO / RR / Tom Pieper'''</span>
==Season 2022/23==
* <span style="background-color:aqua;">'''January 16-21 2023/ Zach / Packrafting / Palena to Puerto Raúl Marín Balmaceda (27P & 28P) + Rio Frío (75P) / 6 Days easy'''</span>
As Shaun mentioned, Kara Davis and Jen Ni described this section quite well. I combined 27P, 28P, and the Rio Frío which was totally worth the added transport effort. If you enjoy the rapids of the upper Palena, you’ll love the Rio Frío. La Junta was a nice lunch stop and upon meeting some familiar cycle tourists, turned into an afternoon off. Note that the take out/camp here is a popular swimming spot, so take care of your belongings when going to town. I left my headphones in the sun to dry and they were gone when I returned. Despite that and rain the final day, I have nothing but good things to say about Rio Palena. The termas are aptly named. The surrounding moss and tannin in the water make you feel like a gingerbread man soaking in a forest gnome’s tea kettle. After seeing no one on the river except 1 fishing tour, I was very surprised to encounter a group of 50 paddlers as part of the Decenso Colectivo Ruta de Palena. This is an organized group that paddles from Palena to Puerto Raul Marin in 4 days this time each year. The ferry still runs Thursdays and Sundays, although it left around 11:30, not 9:40 as the website states. No problem to buy a ticket upon boarding.
==Season 2021/22==
==Season 2020/21==
==Season 2019/20==
==Season 2018/19==
* <span style="background-color:aqua;">'''GPT27P and 28P (Alto and Bajo Rio Palena) Packrafting Westbound (😉): Palena to Raul Marin Balmaceda 2019-Jan-01 to 2019-Jan-04'''</span>
[*Comments posted on Facebook by Jen Ni January 5 2019]
Our impression was that the river can be separated into 5 subsections, each with different character. All parts are attractive and felt quite remote. For camping you generally have the choice between sandy/rocky river banks and farm land.