Skolai Images

Hey Folks,

Sometimes we’d run a full river trip down the Futaleufu instead of the more common “Bridge to Bridge” section, which is the standard day-trip, about 12km of solid whitewater. On the full river section, we’d usually make it an overnighter, and enjoy the flatwater runs between the various sections of whitewater. Halfway along the trip is this killer place to go rock jumping. A nice sunny day, a deep, flat pool of water and a high ledge made for great fun for everyone. You’ll notice Gabby in the orange Jackson kayak just downstream, in position in case anyone got hurt jumping and needed some assistance. As always, safety first.

Cheers

Carl

Hey Folks,

So, I’ll wrap up my Mundaca Series here. This is a safety boat, a cataraft, that runs the river ahead of the whitewater rafts, and gets set to pick up folks who might fall out of the rafts. Of course, that’s the plan, but if the cataraft flips, then the safety is shot. Generally, using a series of hand signals and keeping a watchful eye out, something like this will be communicated back upstream to let the guides of the rafts know they have no safety. In which case, they generally wait until the cataraft is either flipped back over, or they’ll continue on down the river, but run a more cautious line. I shouldn’t say there’s no safety - on a river like the Futaleufu, each whitewater rafting trip (more…)

Merry Xmas Folks!

Here’s a similar shot to the one I posted of KC going vertical in Mundaca. The guide is Manu, from Switzerland. Manu was the king of going big on the Futaleufu in 2007. Nobody had the number of big hits that Manu did. And he cooks up a helluva storm too! It’s awesome being around people who get so excited about what they do - Manu’s eyes lit up everytime we got to Cara del Indio, a little beach right before we’d hit Mundaca. The excitement builds, and everyone just knows he’s going big. - right down the center. Awesome stuff. And, because it’s Xmas, I’ll post a couple of shots to show you what happens after your raft hits this rapid, IF it doesn’t flip over: (more…)

Hey Folks,

I got an email today from someone asking about the term ‘highside’, I mentioned in yesterday’s post. This photo shows a guide pulling a classic ‘highside’, alas, to no avail. His raft flipped moments later. The guide, nearest the camera with the blue helmet, is diving to the high side of the raft. If his crew had done the same, instead of falling out to the left, the boat may not have flipped - though I suspect it was going to regardless. You can see why folks wear a helmet on the Futaleufu. The poor soul in front of the guide, Brent, got smunched before the boat even flipped.

This is another shot from Mundaca, possibly the classic rapid on the Futaleufu. It’s not the biggest, which is why it’s so cool. Some of the bigger rapids are ‘Terminator’, ‘Throne Room’ and ‘Casa de Piedra’, among a few others. But they’re SO big guides generally have to play it safe - Terminator is at least a 1/4 mile long of solid whitewater, Throne Room is even bigger, and Zeta is a narrow slot canyon full of nasty undercuts and holes that keep bodies a long time - most commercial trips walk Zeta unless the water level is way down.

I promised myself I’d get to bed earlier tonight, but I got to watching the film “Crash” again, and here it is kinda late. What an awesome film.

On another side note, anybody notice anything else new about the ole blog today?

Cheers

Carl

Hey Folks,

Ahhh - the days feel longer already. It’s like Boxing Day for Solstice.

I told you I’d show a couple of photos of how big Mundaca is. This is my friend KC, from New Zealand, guiding a 16′ raft through the entrance wave of Mundaca. One guide plus 6 people in a heavy raft and the wave stands it up almost totally vertical. Some awesome power in the water here. KC’s a killer guide, he’s worked on rivers all over the world, including the Zambezi and the White Nile in Africa. Not too bad for a Kiwi!

Shooting whitewater rafting photos is kinda hard - I found the hardest thing was to not fill the buffer - mostly because the rapids were so big, I could shoot the whole series and still miss stuff. The D2x has a buffer of 17 shots when shooting raw files, and it’s amazing how quickly they go by when you shoot 5 frames per second. (more…)

Hey Folks,

Here’s a photo of us rafting down the Upper Marsh Fork of the Canning River - essentially the headwaters of the Canning in the Brooks Range, close to the continental divide. The river here has eroded its way through the layers of bedrock to form this really neat little mini-canyon. I hopped out of the boat to take some photos of the run. Actually, we ran it several times, and I shot each time, some horizontals, a few verticals, some wider, some tighter, trying to get different compositions of essentially the same scene. (more…)

Hey Folks,

Here’s a photo of the arctic coastal plain, near the Canning River, ANWR, Alaska. This is the now infamous ‘coastal plain’, known as Section 1002, the area that is so frequently proposed be open for oil drilling. One of the big arguments made in favor of opening the area to drilling is that the coastal plain is ‘boring’, or ‘empty’, or ‘nothing’. I disagree that it’s boring. I found it stimulating - the place simply feels alive, vibrant. There’s an energy here (more…)