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→Season 2025/26
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==Season 2025/26==
* <span style="background-color:aqua;">'''GPT77 / 2025-12-02 to 06 / 5 days / Packrafting Sobo from Refugio Pichanco to Leptepu / Meylin Ubilla and Jan Dudeck'''</span>
The fjords between Hornopiren and Leptepu belong to the most attractive fjord packrafting routes of the GPT. Two hot springs along the route sweaten the paddling and make it worthwhile to sit out a day or two when wind and waves make it unsafe to continue on the water. These more northern fjords near Puerto Montt can be surprisingly calm even in summer. That’s changing as further south someone travels.
Public transport to Hornopiren is uncomplicated. Numerous buses depart every day from Puerto Montt.
We carefully reviewed the wind forecast on the “Windy” App. We opted to depart from Refugio Pichanco 20 km south of Hornopiren and not from Hornopiren itself because we had just on calm morning with light rain that was followed by two rainy and windy days. Refugio Pichango offered a decent place to sleep one night. From Refugio Pichanco it’s just 20 km to the Termas de Cahuelmo and it took us 5 hours to paddle this distance.
Public transport from Hornopiren to Refugio Pichanco is also available. We were later told that two minibuses do this trip Monday to Friday, one in the early morning and a second in the early afternoon. Since we had no information about these minibuses we arranged a car transport for 40,000 CLP for these 35 road km from Hornopiren to Refugio Pichanco where the road ends (Ciro and Yohana /
+56 9 3460 8449 /
ciroalvaradomunoz@gmail.com).
The hot springs Cahuelmo consists of about half a dozen pools and temperatures can be regulated by changing the inflow of hot water. A 5 m by 4 m large quincho (open refuge) with a fireplace provides good shelter in rain. There are several camp sites in the forest with decent wind protection. It’s a convenient place to wait for better weather.
A side trip from the Termas de Cahuelmo to Laguna Abascal is worthwhile and takes 1 to 2 days depending how much you plan to paddle on this hidden lake. A open refuge at Laguna Abascal makes an overnight stay at Laguna Abascal convenient. On low tide someone can walk from the Termas Cahuelmo to the Abascal trail head, on high tide packrafting is required. Therefore carry your packraft when visiting Laguna Abascal regardless if you plan to packraft on Laguna Abascal or not.
We packrafted in 6 hours the 30 km from the Termas de Cahuelmo to the Termas de Porcelana. The outflowing tide in fiordo Cahuelmo accelerated our start (between 1 and 3 km/h tidal flow) and on the last 10 km southbound wind permitted us to sail (5 to 7 km/h sailing speed).
We camped at Camp {77} [26.1/21], paid 10,000 CLP per person for access to the hot springs and purchased some fresh bread from Marlys Sanchez who is the caretaker of this place
(+56 9 9097 8860,
marlysporcelana@gmail.com).
From the Termas de Porcelana to the port Leptepu it’s just a 4 km paddle. In calm weather even a basic open packraft is good enough to paddle to these hot springs. For this take the ferry from Hornopiren to Leptepu and packraft from Leptepu to the Termas de Porcelana.
Windy proved to be very reliable with the wind and tide forecast.
==Season 2024/25==
==Season 2023/24==
* <span style="background-color:aqua;">'''GPT77 and GPT76 / Hiking Option from Hornopiren to Chaiten / 2023-November-21st for 8 days / Southbound / Jordan Jennings'''</span>
After arriving in Chaiten from Rio Yelcho, I initially tried travelling northbound towards Caleta Gonzalo. I only made it to Santa Barbara before facing moderate but unpleasant headwinds. Because of the forecast, I decided to return to Chaiten and travel to Hornopiren, to travel southbound. I think this is the wisest thing to do in most cases. Jan mentions northbound travel because of Yelcho, but this is only really possible if you get lucky with weather
In terms of wind- as Jan mentioned - stable/calm weather combined with sunny days creates so from 11am(ish) while the weather during my stay in the area brought prevailing northerlies outside of sunny weather windows. On sunny days, the southerly however, is redirected as a northerly down Fiordo Comau (first stretch from Hornopiren). In terms of apps, Windy is great, but Windfinder.com (location Chaiten Aeródromo) was more accurate. I waited for almost a week in Hornopiren for a decent weather window, although I was told by locals it was an unusual bad spell.
Fiordo Comeu is stunning and should not be rushed - I took Jan’s advice and stayed an extra day to packraft Lago Abascal and it was an absolute highlight. I packrafted down the river back to the thermals campsite - I would only recommend doing if you have a friend with you and whitewater experience. It’s fun, but was sketchy for me doing alone. There was one section that was perhaps a class II+ or III-.
Overall incredible experience, saw a lot of dolphins, seals, penguins
==Season 2022/23==
==Season 2021/22==
* <span style="background-color:aqua;">'''2021-Nov-30 / Hiking / SOBO / Option from Hornopiren to Chaiten (GPT77 and GPT76) / Meylin Elisabeth Ubilla González and Jan Dudeck'''</span>
With the land border between Chile and Argentina still closed hikers can not cross into Argentina on section GPT22 but can continue hiking southbound by walking section GPT78 from Rio Puelo to Hornopiren. See my previous post to this section.