For those of you who love rafting, you should try spicing your adventure a little more, with a two days rafting trip that includes an unforgettable experience camping in the river shore. Here some pictures of this experience

Quijos river is our #2  in the Top Ten most Exciting and Beautiful Rivers in Ecuador.  A couple of weeks ago we took a group of eight “quiteños”, an hungarian and three american girls, to enjoy this unique experience rafting the Quijos river. Quijos River, Ecuador Once we arrived to the river shore, the guides provide the gear (neoprene wetsuit, spray jacket, helmet and paddle), then gave a safety talk, and just before starting the trip, everybody had to jump in the water to swim a smooth rapid to get wet and get used to the water´s temperature, just to be prepared in case the raft flips. The first few rapids, we had the chance to practice paddling instructions.  Then the river starts to get interesting with tougher rapids such as ”Picapiedra” where everybody was having fun, and the ”casi me morí” where one of the rafts flipped.  Inmediately, the guide re-flipped the raft and pull everybody back to the raft.  Sometimes flips are great opportunities to realize that even you are having fun, you are actually doing an extreme sport, and still have to focus on what you are doing, in this case, working together and paddling better. In the bigger rapids (in this case the “Toro” rapid), after scouting, the tourists (and guides) have the chance to choose either they feel like run it or not.  This time, one out of 12 decided not to do it, and we respect that a lot!.  The guides also have to make decisions, such as who would lead the rafts, who would be the safety kayaker, all these, to minimize the risk in this kind of rapids.  One of the rafts flipped at the end of the rapid, but again, the guides managed the situation an kept going.  The third and last flip ocurred when we were half way in the river. At the end of the trip, everybody was happy and relaxed, enjoying a grear riverside buffet lunch. All of them with a new story to tell their friends. Enjoying the canyon in Quijos river, Ecuador

El Chalten is a little town born in the early 1980s, located in Parque Nacional Los Glaciares in Argentina. It is an isolated town where everything (food, services) is a little more expensive than in bigger cities in Patagonia such as El Calafate or Río Gallegos.  But fortunately you can find almost everything there. This town is where you start the hikes to the view points, camping sites of the Park  and of course where climbers from all over the world start their journeys to climb one of the dozens of routes in the Cerro Torre and Fitz Roy cords. Most of the people visit the “Laguna de los tres” which is the lagoon located in the base of the glacier below the Fitz Roy cord.  Some people make a full day hike which means that they leave El Chalten very early in the morning, hike for 4-6 hours to the lagoon and 4-6 hours back to the town.  Some others take their backpacks, tents and sleeping bags, and spend a few days,  to reach the “Poincenot” camping site (2 hours), spend the night there and the next day hike to the lagoon, back to the camp and they either continue hiking to the Cerro Torre camping site or back to El Chalten. All these are good options to see the amazing Fitz Roy.  But if you are a little more adventurous, you can try to reach the “paso superior” ice camping, where climbers, either in tents or snow caves, wait days or weeks for good weather conditions to climb the selected route. Hiking to Paso superior is is an experience itself, the view is amazing, the feeling is irreplaceable.  From this spot you see the magnitude of  the granite walls because you are only about a mile away from the actual base of the peaks.  If you are even more intrepid, you can go further and spend the night up there in a snow cave, hike towards the base of the peaks.  Highly recommended to experience a little bit what is a climber’s life like.   Snow cave for two in Paso Superior, Fitz Roy. To get to this place you need to be in an acceptable physical condition and you absolutely need professional assistance from a mountain guide or an experienced mountaineer, because you have to walk in a glacier (with crevasses, ice, snow, etc) for a few hours and a you have to climb a short small on rock that requires safety instructions, guidance  and appropriate gear.  Contact us if you need more info on how to get to “paso superior”

Snow hiking in the base of Fitz Roy

The team composed by Nico Favresse (Belgium), Sean Villanueva (Belgium) and Ben Ditto (USA), reached the summit of the Paine Central Tower on Torres del Paine, Chile. This happened at the beginning of this month (February 2009) while  I was there doing some mild hiking in comparisson. When I finished the hike from Bader valley towards the base of Torre Central with a couple of friends, we saw a group of climbers, we chatted for a while, I remembered that one of them was Nico, we just wish them good luck on their climb to the South African Route.  And now, it turned out that their names are in all the climbing websites! What is special about this climb? That this is the first free ascent of the east face of the Central Tower.  And it is only the third time that that route is repeated ever. The first ascent was in 1974 (by South Africans), the second in 2004 by another South African team. They spent 13 days in the wall, climbing, hauling, singing, playing music, etc. in “an endless dihedral of about 1200 meters” with “some spectacular pitches up there on amazing granite with incredible moves!”.  But for me, the most important thing they did was to enjoy the wall, enjoy the Patagonian conditions, and enjoy the company of those friends that you can only make when you climb, those to whom you literally trust your life. Check some of their stories, pictures and videos on the expedition blog, I highly recommend it! It is so much fun.

1 UPANO RIVER:

At a glance: Morona Santiago Province, Sucua is the nearest town. Class IV, IV+ The Upano is a dream come true. The River of the Sacred Waterfalls so deep in the Amazon jungle that its sheer solitude makes you be one with nature once again. Class IV and V rivers surrounded by waterfalls, deep green vegetation and jungle citizens that have inhabited the area for centuries. To read more detail about the Upano please read Upano River. Rafting the Canyon of The Sacred Waterfalls

2 QUIJOS RIVER

At a glance: Napo Province.  El Chaco, Class IV, IV+

3 MISAHUALLI RIVER

At a glance: 2 secciones   Prov. Napo.  Tena, Class IV, IV+

4 JONDACHI-HOLLIN

Prov. Napo. Tena, Class IV

5 INTAG

Prov. Imbabura. Intag, Class IV

6 BLANCO RIVER

Prov. Santo Domingo de los Ts’achilas. Los Bancos, Class IV

7 JATUNYACU RIVER

Prov. Napo. Tena, Class III

8 TOACHI RIVER

Prov Santo Domingo de los Tsachilas. Santo Domingo, Class III-IV

9 MIRA RIVER

Prov. Imbabura.  Ibarra Class III-IV

10 ANZU RIVER

Prov. Napo. Tena, Class II-III Considerations for this ranking:

We’ve mentioned the province to which they belong, the closes city and the river class. All of these rivers are commercial. Barefoot Expeditions operates trips in all the rivers mentioned above. We did not list any rivers in the Banos area because they are contaminated and we do not support the utilization of those rivers for water activities nor we endorse the blatant disregard by the authorities of the issues that these rivers face.