Sea Kayaking to Save a Chilean Coast
Story and Photos by Michael Powers

"Look, the little white lambs are free again and running across the sea!" --said by Chilean fishermen when Antarctic storms lash the sea into foam.

Last night a violent storm from Antarctica swept into Fiordo Cahuelmo on the coast of southern Chile. Now with the dawn, bird songs announce that peace has returned, enticing me from my warm tent. I gaze upward into the rainforest canopy, inhaling deeply. Through a luminous corridor where vines and bamboo have been cut away with machetes, I can see mist swirling across the surface of the fjord. I yearn suddenly to be out there, beneath the open sky. I carry my foldable kayak to the water's edge and slip away from the sleeping camp.

The fjord is narrow here in its uppermost reaches, squeezed between lush green palisades rising steeply on both sides, the westernmost flanks of the Andes. The bow of my kayak slices cleanly through the thick mist clinging to the water's mirror-like surface. High above, a waterfall shimmers down in the soft pre-dawn light. The tide is ebbing, and I can feel the grip of sea-bound current against my boat. Ahead, I make out a maze of barnacle-encrusted boulders. A sweep of the paddle swings me back on a parallel course with the rugged shoreline. I move from one eddy to the next, much as I would on a river, until the rock labyrinth plays out in deeper water. The fjord grows wider and the first rays of the rising sun stream down to warm me.

I rest my paddle across the cockpit and relax, allowing the current to sweep me towards the mouth of the fjord. My mind travels back over the series of events that led me here. Several years ago, reports filtered back to the States about an American named Rick Klein, a radical young forest advocate who had gone to South America to search for specimens of the legendary alerce tree. For millenniums these gigantic conifers flourished in the coastal rainforests of Chile. But in just a few generations, early European settlers, coveting the alerce's beautiful and durable wood, cut most of the great trees from their accessible lowland habitat. Klein was intrigued by rumors of cathedral groves of the ancient trees said to exist in remote Andean valleys. Eventually his quest to find the lost alerce ignited the interest and support of others, and in the late '70s he emerged as the founder of a grass roots environmental organization called Ancient Forest International (AFI).

A series of exploratory expeditions followed. Klein argued that proving the existence of cathedral groves of ancient alerce would encourage the preservation of their remaining habitat. Yet he and his followers soon learned a few hard lessons about getting around in the Bosque Valdiviano, the temperate rainforest sprawling along the Chilean coast south the 40th parallel. A glance at a topo map reveals why even today the region remains nearly roadless. Beyond the quaint town of Puerto Montt, southern terminus of the Pan American Highway, a series of fjords cut deeply into the coastal mountains. The coastline begins to crumble and form thousands of islands, the beginning of a vast archipelago that extends all the way to the end of the continent. On an early AFI expedition, someone brought an old folding kayak which proved invaluable for reaching areas inaccessible by foot. From then on, Klein encouraged sea and river kayakers to bring their boats to help.

When I met Klein, he was in the midst of planning yet another ambitious eco-expedition to southern Chile. The possibility of paddling to help save the wilderness proved irresistible, and I talked two of my long-time kayaking friends, John Weed and Bob Stender, into joining me. For months, we honed our expedition and paddling skills along rugged sections of the Pacific Coast from Alaska to Baja. Then on a winter day in California, we boarded an Aero Peru jet bound for the southern hemisphere.

We reached Puerto Montt in early February, at the peak of the austral summer. The town had a frontier spirit, like Jack London's Seattle during the Yukon Gold Rush, with a dash of Gaugin's Tahiti thrown in for good measure. For two days, we gathered provisions and information. On our final afternoon in town we lingered at the Cafe Central, where pretty, dark-eyed girls served us steaming cups of te con leche. Mountaineers who had just returned from climbing Aconcagua and fishermen from the costa del sur fueled our enthusiasm with stories of the great wilderness surrounding us.

Early the next morning we crowded aboard a local bus bound for La Frontera. The pristine seacoast and rainforest we passed appeared as our own Pacific Northwest might have looked a century ago. Periodically the road ended at a deep fjord, where a ferry eventually arrived to transport us to the other side. Between fjords, the narrow road wound up and over steep coastal mountains. Guardrails were nonexistent, and when the spectacle of sheer cliffs dropping away to the sea got too intense, we sought solace in the plastic saints adorning the dashboard. "Compared to traveling this road, " John said, "kayaking the coast must be muy tranquilo. "

We disembarked near a fishing camp named Picicolo. On our way down a steep path to the sea, we passed rows of rustic cabins whose walls were covered with fish and animal pelts hung up to dry. A group of ruddy-faced pescaderos gathered around an equally weathered boat on the beach, tamping caulking into its seams. Children swarmed around us, wearing hats fashioned from sealskin. "This feels like places I've flown into on the coast of Alaska," said our bush pilot Bob Stender as we assembled our folding kayaks.

The sun had fallen low by the time we spotted an opening in the green coastal mountains and slipped into Fiordo Cahuelmo, the place of the dolphins. Shadows gathered on the verdant slopes flanking the vast, water-bound canyon, while the ice-crowned Andes above turned deeper shades of purple. Silence settled over our group as everyone soaked in the beauty. Klein had hardly exaggerated when he described Cahuelmo as a sacred and holy place.

We paddled deeper into the Andes, towards the head of the fjord. A full moon rose over the mountains by the time we pulled up on grass-covered beach near camp. Dozens of faces smiled at us from around a roaring fire, and the soulful sound of a Chilean folk song filled the air. "Bienvenidos, welcome to Cahuelmo!," everyone shouted, and a young Chilena passed plates of freshly steamed mussels.

After dinner, we hiked the fjord to another long-anticipated treat--Las Termas, the natural hot springs of Cahuelmo. Here a series of pools had been painstakingly carved into rock over the years, legacy of a vanished race of nomadic seafolk known as the Chonos. I sank into a steaming pool and felt the tensions of the long journey begin to melt away. A few feet away, the flooding tide streamed into the fjord, awash in moonlight. The Southern Cross shown brightly in an obsidian sky. "Ah, gracias a los Chonos," I sighed.

The next morning we learned that several expedition teams, including one led by Klein, were off searching in the cordillera for alerce. Already, nearly a hundred folks from 11 different countries and many diverse disciplines had come and gone from our remote basecamp. Everyone seemed excited to share what they had seen and experienced since arriving at Cahuelmo. Backpackers and kayakers arrived and departed daily on exploratory missions; scientists studied the ecosystem; teams foraged for food and firewood. Ami, part of the Ancient Forest vanguard from Northern California, ran the kitchen where meals for a hundred hungry expedicionarios were prepared each day over an open fire. She paused from shouting orders long enough to admit, "Cahuelmo is as much about self-discovery as it is about alerce discovery, and hopefully I've lost some ego in the process."

Cameras, notebooks and tape recorders were everywhere, as journalists and filmmakers attempted to document what was going on. A crowd gathered around a Chilean ornithologist named Luis when he returned from his nets with a brightly-colored native bird, which he carefully measured and then released. A biologist produced a "Darwin's frog," with its distinctive hooked snout, as well as a handful of huge beetles.

Other sea kayaking friends from California arrived. Rich Warren, along with newlyweds Jim and Linda Sheldon, paddled back from Quintupeu, another fjord a few miles north. Its narrow entrance made it an ideal hiding place for the beleaguered German battleship Dresden during its historic attempt to escape from allied forces during WW II. "It was like paddling into a half-submerged Yosemite Valley," said Rich. "The mountains surrounding Quintepeu are even higher than here at Cahuelmo, and the waterfalls were awesome. There was wildlife everywhere, seals and birds, that I've never seen back home. We also saw a huge sea otter sunning himself on a rock at the head of the fjord."

Charles Darwin, after visiting this coast, promised "indescribable rewards for those who would persevere through the Chilean rainforest." Yet listening to the backpackers bemoan the leeches that clung to their ankles, the injuries they received from machetes, and other agonies of bushwhacking through the trail-less, overgrown rainforest, we felt fortunate to have come by sea.

Still, one morning we decided to let others use our boats while we joined an exploratory party heading up into the cordillera. We followed the river to the head of the fjord for about a kilometer, and then a tributary that rose steeply into the bosque antiguo, the ancient forest Klein had described with such enthusiasm. We came at last to a waterfall cascading hundreds of feet over a succession of moss- and vine-covered ledges. Our Chileno companions informed us that the falls had been named Cascada Libertad de Mandala by a previous expedition, in honor of the South African leader. Near the base of the falls, a young girl named Pancha led me to a niche in the cliffs where she had discovered a tiny nest containing two baby hummingbirds.

One morning with the high tide, an official-looking steel-hulled lancha arrived at the head of the fjord near our camp. The smartly uniformed Chilean federal police who disembarked stood in sharp contrast to the expedition members, most of whom by now had taken on a decidedly rustic appearance. Yet Capitán Felix Vargas, leader of the carabineros, smiled warmly after learning the purpose of our visit. His gaze swept out over Fiordo Cahuelmo and then back over the sea of sun- and wind-weathered faces. Vargas strode up to Klein, who had just returned from the mountains. Extracting a small vial of gold from his pocket, Vargas presented it to him, explaining he had gathered it from a nearby river. "Gold has great importance to man," he said. "But this value is nothing compared to the ecology of our planet."

On our last evening in Cahuelmo, Klein called everyone into a circle around the fire. Lightning flashing on the horizon added to the feeling of expectation. Alternating between Spanish and English, Klein spoke about the discoveries his group made in the mountains. Then a kayaker named Carlos stepped forth and reported that while paddling south of Cahuelmo, his group spotted a big valley rising up from the sea that could be prime habitat for 4,000-year-old alerce trees. A resolution was made to organize a backpacking trip to investigate.

More lightning flashed, closer now. Kiko Andersen, from the Seattle Mountaineering Club, presented a vivid account of his party climbing an unnamed peak, which they christened Siempre Salvaje (Forever Wild). A biologist named Miguel then spoke in Spanish, and Klein translated: "Struggling for three days through the jungle, following a river, we came to a 1,000-foot waterfall. Two days later, we reached the summit, the roof of the visible world. Now my body aches all over, but it was well worth it." Pisa, who came from Europe to participate in the expedition, added, "The climb was like giving birth, it was that difficult. But then we found this hanging canyon, filled with alerce!" A lean, dark eagle of a man named Hernan Verscheure, a leader of Chile's environmental movement, moved up to the fire and chimed in. "At 550 meters above sea level, we accomplished our primary objective of finding untouched groves of alerce," he said. Then Klein joined the conversation. "We know that cathedral groves of alerce, possibly the oldest living creatures on earth, have escaped the onslaught of civilization and are thriving in the valleys above here," he said. "We have the photographs, the documentation needed to help secure this magnificent wilderness for future generations."

Lightning exploded directly overhead and raindrops began to fall, hissing as they hit the fire. Everyone ran for their tents. As always in this wild land, nature had the final word.

--Conservationists are continuing to help secure protection for one of the last relatively intact, temperate rainforest ecosystems remaining in the world. Exploration of this little-known wilderness area is crucial to its conservation, and paddlers will continue to play an important role in future expeditions. For more information, contact: Ancient Forest International, P.O. Box 1850, Redway, CA 95560, (707) 923-3015; or Fundación Lahuen, Orrego Luco 054, Providencia, Santiago, Chile, 011- 56-2-251-7506.

--Michael Powers, a photojournalist who engages in eco-expeditions around the world, lives in Northern California with his Chilean wife, Nani. He and fellow Tsunami Ranger Eric Soares recently finished a book about extreme sea kayaking, to be published this spring by Ragged Mountain Press.