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→Season 2025/26
==Season 2025/26==
GPT77 / 2025-12-02 to 06 / 5 days / Packrafting Sobo from Refugio Pichanco to Leptepu / Meylin Ubilla and Jan Dudeck
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==