This year in Chile I spent 5 weeks with NRA as head coach on the rivers of Pucon and the Rio Claro. It was a bit new for me being on the faculty side of things, lots of questions for sure but it was good to share my knowledge of the rivers and kayaking with kids as others did for me during my progression of kayaking (im still progressing in kayaking i hope).
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| telling the kids how to hit the kicker on the cali slide |
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| now showing them how its done... |
We got to do many rivers around Pucon, such as the well placed Rio Trancura, the classic waterfall run Upper Palguin, and the Pucon favorite as well as mine Rio Nevado. The Palguin was one a few of the kids who planned to stay over break wanted to train on for the Pucon River Fest race. So we set a mock race up with the prize of a free dinner to who ever beat me. Sorry to say no free dinners for them.
Our next river is the Nevado which i describe as single track kayaking at its finest but once you drop in past the Wall Falls drop you are gorged in till the takeout. No worries though because its full of clean drops from there till right above the Demshitz drop where we takeout. One of our days on the Nevado we had guest coaches Evan Garcia teaching most of the young shit runnas how to properly through up a brown claw while stouting and Aniol Serrasolses come along with me individually coaching the two girls Haley and Sara how to style each drop, which they did. After this run all the kids watched from the cliffs edge as the boys and I fired off the Demshitz drop and the lower gorge for the 4th time that week.
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| Aniol stylin the Diablito |
After enjoying these rivers and a few more around Pucon area we packed up and headed north the Rio Claro with smiles on our faces.
Knowing what lied ahead on the Rio Claro, I became very excited for the clean drops and beautiful gorges. The three sections of the river are 22 Saltos, Entres Saltos, and the well known 7 Tazas. Having a relaxing day after a long drive up the day before but still getting 2 runs in on the 22, I was excited to see some friends from the Maipo make it down our way and got to link up 22 into Entres saltos and then i met up with the school for a Tazas run making it a todo claro run for me on day 2 at the Claro.
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| freewheeling the ski jump on 22... |
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| round 1 of 4 on Garganta del Diablo... |
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| just a little one.. |
For the next week and a half, we were located at the takeout for 22 saltos and the putin for entres saltos. It seemed just too good be true at times, not a bad place for the school to finish off the first semester of school. Hope everyone had as good a time as me and cant wait to continue my Stomping Stouts with Authority 101... good lines everybody!!!
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| Kincaid Wurl laying out a sweet backflip |
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| just a few pics of the everyday scenery |
