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→Season 2025/26
==Season 2025/26==
* <span style="background-color:aqua;">'''2025-12-23 to 2025-12-30 / 8 days / Packrafting / NOBO / RP / OP 04 / Daniel.s'''</span>
Just got back from eight more and less rainy days in Valle Picacho. The duration was planned and not forced by nature.
Day 1: took the 5:30 am bus to "cruze Picaflor" and hiked to the put in via option 04 (no one ther for puente de piedra entrance, I just walked by). Rain and strong wind made a river journey seem unpleasant, so I camped near the put in.
Day 2: a lot of rain in the night made the river rise significantly, I guess 20-40cm more than usual. Therefore no ground contact, many obstacles in main current. The last rapid I portaged. Camped about 5 km before lake as rain was imminent and fished my Christmas dinner ; )
Day 3: a dry night, the river level dropped ~30cm at the marker i set. Went to the lake and made myself at home in the abandoned fishing lodge (Building Abandoned {29PN} [47.8+0.2/41]) and stayed there for three days.
Day 6: from day three it rained a lot and the lake level rose by approximately 75cm by day 5 and dropped back ~30cm but still way above "normal" according to the vegetation lines. I paddled lago copa 1 and portaged the first rapid (barely possible on the side of the rapid due to high water level). Crossing Lago copa 2 in strong headwind gave me time to think about the next rapid. I decided not to try my luck in the gorge and opted for some bushwhacking action because my reference points from two years ago were all under water . And some action it was. The 1km on the map ended up being only 1,5km in real hiking distance but it took me 4 hours to complete it. It took all I had, the toughest fight against bamboo and its brothers you can imagine. Machete is useless mostly. Luckily there's a nice wind sheltered campspot at the third portage S 44° 52.079', W 072° 39.729', which i already used two years ago with Lauren and Sebastian.
Day 7: it raind and it was very windy so I took the day off.
Day 8: paddled to the last hiking section. Getting out on land is a bit tricky if you're alone, but manageable. There's no more bushwhacking in this section. Thanks to the effort of the past two years (Jordan, L&S, N&T) the trail is clearly visible and I didn't have to check the GPS once. Also someone must have passed through a few days before me, there were very fresh machete hacks. I just had to do some window dressing and the whole thing took me only 50min. L. Escondido and the ri erst to Puerto cisnes are easy, I chose to portage the rapid before joining rio cisnes.
==Season 2024/25==
